


Through Chaos As It Swirls, It's Us Against The World

by Smartinski



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-06 11:58:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 34,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13410789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smartinski/pseuds/Smartinski
Summary: One word. It’s only one word that falls from her lips but it feels like a thousand knives plummeting into Stiles’ heart. This isreal.“Lydia?”Stiles breathes out, studying her older face and her green eyes and her hair that’s a lot shorter since the last time he saw her. And then he remembers that she’s wearing military uniform and his eyes begin to roll to the back of his head. But before darkness takes hold of him, he finds the last bit of strength left in him to mumble out some form of a sentence.“What thefuckis going on.”





	1. Oh morning come bursting the clouds, amen

YEAR: 2020. PRESENT DAY 

“We need a new plan.”

Stiles keeps his fingers entwined together as he stares at the long crack in the wall in front of him. His right leg shakes underneath his arm, leaning his upper body forward to ease the aching in his back.

He looks up at Scott.

“We’re out of plans.”

“We can’t be out of plans. We need to come up with a new one.” Scott mumbles back, his voice arid and weak.

Stiles stops shaking his leg before standing up, scanning the demolished hideout that they are occupying then turns to face his best friend.

“I don’t know if you’ve actually looked outside, Scott, but the world has gone to shit. Every plan - every _idea_ we have come up with has failed. We are fucked-”

“Keep your god-damn voice down.” Scott hisses, his eyes focused on the broken blinds hanging over the window in front of him.

Stiles wants to scream at Scott. He wants to yell, he wants to tear the whole room down. But once his eyes slowly flicker to the broken figure lying on one of the beds next to him, he unclenches his fists and closes his mouth.

“Scott, he’s not healing.” Stiles confirms with a whisper for the final time, his eyes scanning over Liam’s battered and wounded body. “He has been unconscious for the past hour and a half and we don’t know how to fix him.”

Scott doesn’t dare look at the werewolf lying on the bed, blood seeping through the ripped shirt clinging to Liam’s body.  
Stiles steps back, wiping his face with his hands. 

“It feels like we’ve been running ever since we left Beacon Hills. I can’t do this anymore.”

“Then what do you suggest we do?” Scott asks desperately, his voice low in the quiet room.

Stiles breathes out, his lungs and chest aching. “There’s nothing else we _can_ do.”

Scott’s head turns to the side, his body tensing up.

“Someone’s here.”

The number of times they have been caught and almost killed should prevent Stiles from panicking, but nevertheless, his whole body freezes as if it is a brand new experience. His bones are tired and his eyes sting but taking one look at Scott hovering by the window just brings out the fight inside of him.

“Take him and get to the fire exit.” Stiles points at the unresponsive werewolf lying on the bed as he glares at Scott. 

The light shining through the back window illuminates only Scott’s eyes, and they wear so much hurt and anger that Stiles feels like breaking down on the floor and crying for the both of them.

But he left Beacon Hills protecting Scott, and he isn’t planning on stopping anytime soon.

Stiles pulls out the gun that rests in the waistband of his jeans, watching Scott lift Liam from the bed and over his shoulder before moving quickly and quietly into the back room.

Stiles lifts his gun once he knows he’s alone, stepping slowly towards the window.

He can hear their footsteps echoing along the balcony. His heart’s racing.

He hears them break into the apartment next to him, searching for any sign of a capture. That’s their only goal, after all, and it still makes Stiles feel sick to the stomach. His eyes stay fixated on the blinds, waiting and waiting with his gun pointed until he sees their shadows dancing across the window ledge.

Stiles can feel his heart beating through his t-shirt and he can hear the shaking in his breath as the sound of their feet treading quietly on the concrete outside vibrates through the thin carpet of the apartment. He can hear them whispering, talking into radios, ordering each other to stand guard and check their ten o’clock.

And then they fall silent.

Stiles doesn’t know what to expect. All he can feel is the blood pumping around his head and the ringing in his ears and the reek of sweat radiating off of his body.

He stares at the blinds for so long it feels like the room is stretching and the window is moving further and further away until the sound of a bullet breaking glass rattles through his skull.

He ducks, hearing their guns firing and firing through the window, spraying glass all over Stiles’ body before he crawls towards the back room, wondering how on earth he is dodging so many flying bullets.

He crawls until his knees and elbows leave carpet and impact with laminate flooring then knows that he’s in the kitchen and it’s safe to stand. He slams his hand on the counter above him and heaves himself up before squinting into the darkness. His eyes fall on the fire exit door, immediately throwing his body into it.

It flies open, slamming against the wall before Stiles speeds down the first flight of metal stairs, the evening air hitting him like a refreshing drink.

But nothing is refreshing about this. Not when he can hear them following him through the apartment and out the fire escape and he doesn’t know where Scott and Liam are.

Then fate decides to grant his one wish when he jumps the second flight of stairs and there Scott is, leaning Liam’s body against the metal railings, looking up at Stiles with a relieved expression.

“You’re not hurt-”

“Scott, I’m fine. Let’s get him down the stairs.” Stiles replies, lifting Liam’s legs as Scott wraps his arms around the young werewolf’s chest.

Stiles almost runs backwards down the stairs as the metal begins to rattle from above, signalling that the attackers aren’t far behind them.

“Keep going, Stiles.” Scott huffs. “We can do this-”

“Get down!” Stiles yells, letting his knees fall to the ground as an array of bullets spray the wall next to them. Scott barely makes it to the ground as a bullet shaves past his back.

Adrenaline pumps through Stiles’ body. His eyes are scanning every layout of the building, every figure standing in the parking lot below with guns aiming up at them, every explosion lighting up the sky in the distance.

He turns to his left and kicks a door open, pushing Scott to get inside.

“We have you surrounded!” A voice bellows from the ground. “Do not attempt to run!”

Stiles just about enters the room after Scott when the apartment door flies open, revealing more figures in black holding weapons and helmets covering their faces, causing Scott to force Liam’s body at Stiles to push him back out of the apartment.

Then, in a split second, everything and anyone around Stiles is blown back.

In that split second, he sees Scott’s eyes flash red.

He sees his hands lose grip on Liam. He sees both of their bodies being flung through the air.

He feels his _own_ body being flung through the air.

He feels his back hit the railings of the stairs.

He’s falling.

He feels nothing when he hits the ground, maybe he blacks out for a few seconds due to the shock.

But the next thing he’s aware of, he’s staring up at the black, smoky sky, lit up by orange explosions and battle fires.

He can’t hear any of it, and it’s all happening ever so slowly.

He feels drunk, like if he was to move his head to the left he’d pass out. But after the ringing dies out in his ears and everything begins to move in normal time, his heart drives into erratic beating mode because he distinctly remembers something exploding and his body being thrown to the ground, as well and Scott and Liam.

And then he feels sick because he can’t see anything when he turns his head. There’s so much _smoke_.

Stiles can’t find his voice, and he can’t find Scott’s either.

It’s as if it is impossible to speak over the sound of the screams and yells and guns erupting through the air but the desperate feeling in his chest, screaming at Stiles to find Scott is telling him otherwise.

But he can’t scream. There’s too much going on around him that he’s lost the feeling in his legs and his throat has closed up and he’s lying there like a corpse.

Until the voice inside him growls at him to pull himself up so he does. His arms are shaking and a pain begins to radiate through his shoulder blades as he lifts his upper body so he’s leaning on his elbow.

He looks around at the utter mess that the world has become.

Stiles can see figures scattered across the ground, he can see figures trying to crawl away from the aftermath of the explosion but he can’t recognise a single one of them.

And when the silhouette of a figure appears through the smoke, Stiles begs it to be Scott even though he knows that the figure is wearing too much armour to be his best friend.

Studying the armoured figure marching quickly towards him, the clever and responsive part of Stiles’ mind puts together that this is no regular armour or uniform that he’s been unhappily encountered by many times in the past.

The person who is approaching him is no soldier of the Black Nation.

The person staring down at him with a combat helmet strapped loosely around their head is not wearing the familiar black that Stiles is used to seeing. They are covered in camouflage uniform that sends a jolt of pure happiness and relief through Stiles because, _Jesus Christ,_ this guy is in the army.

He’s military. Something that Stiles assumes was wiped out long ago.

He hasn’t even acknowledged the gun pointing towards his head because he finally feels hope for the first time in a while.  
Stiles lifts the arm he isn’t using to lean on into the air, his body numb from everything that has happened.

“Don’t shoot. I’m not armed, don’t shoot.” Stiles yells out the best that he can. Then a light is being flashed in his face and it hurts so much because of how tired he is.

“ _Wait!_ Lower your weapons.” Stiles hears a voice call out. A woman’s voice.

He squints past the flashlight and into the darkness to try and locate where the voice came from.

A smaller figure appears from the smoke, also covered in camo. The source of where the voice came from.

“I said, lower your weapons. _Now_.”

Stiles recognises that voice.

“Ma'am-” The figure who is still shining the flashlight in Stiles’ face speaks up.

“Do as I say. Right now.”

Stiles definitely knows that voice. It’s right there on the tip of his tongue but he can’t see the person’s face past the blasting light shining into his eyes.

The figure crouches down, elbows resting on their knees and it takes a while for Stiles’ eyes to readjust from the blinding light that is no longer bleeding into his eyes. The light has been blocked by the figure crouching in front of him with the recognisable voice that sounds _so_ familiar that when they speak Stiles feels like he is home and that terrifies him, because how is this feeling even possible when everyone he loves is either _missing_ or _dead_.

And when Stiles can finally see properly, his eyes study the array of strawberry-blonde curls battling against the pale-skinned face staring straight back at him.

He’s either dreaming or dying because she isn’t there. This isn’t real life.

But then he feels her dainty fingers trace over his arm and the revolting feeling that he is going to throw up passes through his mind. What he knows is that he is so close to passing out and he is desperate to say one sentence before he does fall unconscious. But the oh-so-familiar voice speaks first.

“Stiles?”

One word. It’s only one word that falls from her lips but it feels like a thousand knives plummeting into Stiles’ heart. This is _real_.

“ _Lydia?_ ”

Stiles breathes out, studying her older face and her green eyes and her hair that’s a lot shorter since the last time he saw her. And then he remembers that she’s wearing military uniform and his eyes begin to roll to the back of his head. But before darkness takes hold of him, he finds the last bit of strength left in him to mumble out some form of a sentence.

“What the _fuck_ is going on.”


	2. Lift off this blindfold, let me see again

**PRESENT DAY**

Stiles' first initial thought process when he wakes up is that he had a _really_ good sleep.

His drooping eyes eventually open and adjust to the light above him, allowing him to see that he's in some sort of bedroom.

It's plain; no decoration or personal feel to it, just a room with a couple of shelves, a chair and a bed which Stiles is currently occupying.

A machine hums next to him and he notices that a needle is embedded in his wrist and clear liquid is being pumped into him.

_Panic mode._

He jumps out of the bed, ripping the needle from his skin and heading towards the door. He barely opens it, peaking out slightly and watches a few people walk past the room calmly. One in military uniform, the others in scrubs.

He closes the door, swallowing to coat his throat and tries to calm himself down until he hears somebody clear their throat.

He turns around to dissect the room with his eyes and they fall on another door. He hears a tap running and then a sniff and then he finds himself slowly moving towards it.

A bat is leaning against the wall - he grabs it, grasping it in his hands and raising it so he's ready.

One hand on the bat and one hand stretched out to the handle, he takes a deep breath and-

The door opens and out comes Lydia Martin, towel drying her hair.

Jesus fucking _christ_.

He stands completely frozen, the air knocked from his lungs and the bat lingering mid-air.

Lydia blinks at him, her eyes round and glassy. "H-Hi."

Hi. _Hi._

Stiles exhales the last of his breath and his arm falls to his side and the bat falls to the ground.

He tries to speak, he tries to say hello back but he's staring at her face, her hair, her eyes...just her _presence_ is sending him into a spiral.

"What are you doing out of bed?" Lydia asks him, her arms hovering awkwardly at her sides and her eyes glancing at the blood on Stiles' wrist.

He swallows. "I, er...need-I just needed to...uh-get some air."

His voice croaks with every word and as the realisation settles in that - _yes_ \- Lydia Martin is standing opposite him and - _yes_ \- they're both alive and well, his heart begins to race faster and faster and he feels the urge to cry.

She continues to stare at him, her eyes staring intently into his until she looks down, tears welling up.

What else can he say? What can he say right now that will cover all the questions he's dying to ask?

He simply cannot. He would like to yell, to cry, to ask her where the _hell she's been_ but he doesn't.

Instead, as he feels a sob escape his mouth, he steps forward and crashes his body against hers, wrapping his arms tightly around her.

"I thought you were dead. I thought you were _dead_."

He feels her body crumble into him which only makes him hold her tighter, to be as close as possible to her.

"Same goes for you." She mumbles into his t-shirt.

He's in complete and total shock. He rests his chin on the crown of her head, shaking his own head in the process.

"Lydia Martin, I have so many questions."

She clears her throat before laughing. "Same goes for you."

****

\-----------------------

"Alright, we're just going to dive into the med bay before I show you to the cafeteria." Lydia walks in front of him, passing people in the hall with a smile. She turns to him mid-walk. "You hungry?"

He nods, looking around at the different people, the different rooms.

"Good. We'll get some food and then we'll go check up on Scott and Liam."

"Is it fixable?" He asks, eyeing up the soldiers as they walk past and nod at Lydia.

"Liam will take longer to heal, the serum has been in his system a lot longer." She explains. "We're lucky - we found Scott just after they injected him and tried to take him. He should be fine in a couple of days."

They turn a corner then enter the first room on the right. Stiles assumes it's the med bay (given the beds and the smell of sanitiser).

"Max," Lydia calls out as they walk into the room. A man in his twenties stops talking to a nurse and looks up at Lydia. "Can you check Stiles' vitals? He pulled out his IV."

Max steps forward with a frown, staring at Stiles and then down at his wrist. "He pulled out his _IV_?"

"Yes, he pulled out his IV."

Max raises his eyebrows before gesturing for Stiles to sit on the closest bed. "Lydia mentioned you were a 'think on your feet' kind of guy, but _jeeze_. You could have done some serious damage."

Stiles looks over at Lydia with an eyebrow raised.

She rolls her eyes in response, looking through another patient's charts.

In goes the needle into Stiles once more (Max opts for the other wrist this time) and he checks Stiles over. He finishes up by shining a flashlight in Stiles' eyes and nods in approval.

"All is well."

Stiles clears his throat. "Thanks."

Lydia hands the charts to Max and pats him on the shoulder. "I'll catch up with you later on?"

Max nods and waves them off as Lydia leads Stiles out of the medbay and down the hall.

He can't help but ask. "Who's that?"

Lydia opens her mouth and then retracts. "A very loyal colleague."

Stiles twitches at this and wants to ask more questions, but waits for the right time.

They enter the cafeteria - a very _large_ cafeteria and they head to the back of the queue.

"Lydia, where the hell are we?" Stiles mumbles to her just as a woman turns around in front of them.

"Ma'am, would you like to go in front?"

Lydia smiles and shakes her head. "No, thank you. You go ahead."

Stiles blinks. "And why have I heard at least ten different people call you 'ma'am'?"

Lydia sighs as they step forward. "Can you at least bombard me with these questions once we're sitting down and eating?"

Stiles grumbles to himself, his eyes twitching from person to person, deciding whether he can trust anyone in here and whether he's in the place he should be and whether Scott and Liam are being cared for or not. And then it's their turn.

It's a lot like lunch at Beacon Hills. And when the lady plops some brown sludge onto his plate, he looks down at Lydia and they're eighteen again; flirting in the lunch line and neither of them wanting to make the first move.

Jump forward seven years - they're in the middle of World War III, nearly everyone they know is dead, Lydia's hair is shorter and they haven't seen each other in five years. 

It's safe to say that he'd like to rewind and go back to flirting in the lunch line.

They take a seat opposite each other and Stiles dives into his food, no matter how bad it tastes. He can't remember the last time he ate.

Lydia picks at hers, watches Stiles from across the table. He can feel her eyes on his, studying his scruffy brown hair, the bags under his eyes, the aged lines. And when he looks up from his food and locks eyes with her, he's sure she can see all the hatred and hurt in his eyes. Every single bit of it.

"You gotta start talking. I'm even more confused than when I woke up."

She smiles, eats a bit of lettuce and folds her arms. "I don't even know where to begin."

Stiles drums his fingers on the table. "How about we start where we last spoke."

Lydia looks up at him immediately. Maybe she replays their last phone call over and over just like Stiles does.

"I think I need to start before then. When it all started going to shit."

\-----------------------

  
**YEAR: 2014**  


"Lydia?"

She's got one hand resting under her chin while biting her nails, the other hovering over the keypad of her laptop. She looks up and sees her tutor beckoning her over.

Pushing her stool out, she saunters over to her teacher with a raised eyebrow.

"This is going to sound completely crazy..." Mr Metting leans to Lydia, his voice a whisper. "But the President of the United States is in the lecture room down the hall and wants to talk with us both."

Lydia blinks. A little stunned, but not the craziest thing that's happened in her life.

"Is this an 'ask questions later' kind of scenario?" She asks.

"Most probably." Mr Metting responds.

"Okay." Lydia exhales, a little shaky.

"Grab your laptop. He wants to see your notes."

Lydia's mind races to each question she wants to ask as she grabs her stuff and follows her tutor down the hall. First of all, what the _hell_ is going on.

She's panicking slightly as this could literally be anything. Do the government know? About...everything? Do they want to question her? She needs to prepare for total silence from her end, she cannot say a word-

"Good afternoon, Ms Martin."

She looks up as they enter the room. She counts at least eight bodyguards standing around the room, two standing next to the President himself as he relaxes on a chair.

"Take a seat, take a seat."

Lydia approaches him with confidence (as always) and reaches over to shake his hand. "A pleasure meeting you, Mr President."

"And by the look on your face, you're probably wondering what the hell I'm doing here."

Lydia pulls in her lips as she sits down, smoothing down the back of her skirt beforehand. "You could say that."

"Well, I've been engaging with MIT for a while. I've taken an interest in Mr Metting's research lab...BEAM, as you call it. Quick pop quiz: what does that stand for?"

"Bioinstrumentation Engineering Analysis and Microscopy." Lydia smiles.

The President winks. "I knew I picked the right individual for the job. And I also forgot what it stood for, so thank you for that."

Lydia holds in a laugh.

"I'm looking to hire a research team - a small one - to help me with a problem that's arisen."

Lydia nods, intrigued.

"What I'm about to say is extremely confidential, and I'm going to have to ask you to sign a disclaimer form afterwards."

Lydia's foot taps against the floor. "Okay."

The President wets his lips and leans forward.

"It has been brought to my attention that a chain of organizations across the world are working on creating a serum - a weapon maybe - with the sole purpose of injecting the human race with it. So far, we know three of their locations: West Sussex in England, Surgut in Russia and Idaho. I'm sure more locations will be revealed in the time to come, but this is what we can work with for now."

Lydia blinks, glances at her tutor quickly before the President continues.

"We're currently trying to get our hands on this serum so we can test it and create...an antiserum perhaps, while we find a way to end the organisations. It's all in dispute at the moment between countries and governments. I just want to be one step ahead so we can start acting if the worst happens."

Lydia nods slowly. "And, I'm assuming that we'll be stepping in to test and create an antiserum."

"Your assumptions are correct."

"Can I ask...what is the reasoning behind these organisations, the serum? What will they be gaining out of it?" She asks.

"We haven't got that far yet. It'll be a slow process."

Lydia nods again, looking down at the form in front of her. "And if I agree to this, I will be helping the human race? There are no hidden agendas here?"

"Not at all. You'll be putting an end to what could be a catastrophic war, worst case scenario." The President replies. "You'll get your own lab in DC, unlimited resources and your own team. You and Mr Metting will be working alongside one another."

Lydia pulls in her lips. She could use some advice right now. She could do with calling Stiles.

"I've seen your work, Ms Martin. You have an incredible mind. I could really use your help with this one." The President lowers his voice, a pleading tone to it.

Lydia releases her lips and turns to Mr Metting. He sends her an 'I think we could do it' shrug and that confirms it. He's been teaching her (and learning himself) for just over a year and she respects his judgement.

"Alright." Lydia clicks the top of her pen. "Let's do this."

\-----------------------

She's walking out the doors of MIT to her car when she decides to call Stiles to tell him her news. He answers after the second ring.

" _Hey, Lyds._ " 

"You'll never guess what happened to me today."

" _So many scenarios are running through my mind. Can I have a clue? Was it supernatural?_ " 

"Wait, wait...let me get in my car." Lydia unlocks her car and scrambles in. "I'm not supposed to be telling anyone this."

" _Oh my god, you're secretly married._ " 

"Stiles."

" _Are you pregnant? Have we maxed the adult card out and created a human? I hope it's a girl._ " 

"Will you shut up for a second?" Lydia huffs.

" _I'm sorry. Tell me about your crazy day._ " 

Lydia pauses. Checks the parking lot for eavesdroppers. Even makes sure her radio is switched off and there are no hidden microphones. Anything is possible now.

"The President visited me today."

Silence.

" _Sorry,_ what? _"_

__

__

"Insane, isn't it."

" _What, did he stop in for coffee? An update on your life? You gotta give me details, Lydia._ " 

"Well, he explained they've located a couple of institutions that are creating some sort of illegal serum that could be potentially used as a weapon and he wants me and my tutor to get a team together, fly out to Washington and find out what it is. I even had to sign a disclosure form."

" _Are you kidding? That's insane!_ " Stiles yells. " _Wait, how do I not know about this? Why haven't work asked me to go and ambush these places and arrest the bad guys? Oh my god, what if I'm the one that delivers the serum to you? We'd be like some sort of sexy tag team that saves the world-_ "

"I'm going to drive now."

" _Okay, okay. I'm so extremely proud of you. The President of the United States hunting you down specifically to fix something. Can you believe this?_ " 

Lydia laughs. "No, I cannot. How's your day been?"

" _In comparison to yours, irrelevant. Although...I'm heading down to Beacon Hills tomorrow. Scott called me, something's gone down._ " 

"What?" Lydia sits up. "What's happened?"

" _Nothing extreme, I promise. Monroe's at it again. I'm gonna go lend a helping hand._ " 

"Why didn't Scott call me? I should come home and help."

" _Will you relax, Lyds? If it was serious he would have called us both for help. I promise, if things get messy, I'll call you._ " 

Lydia scowls at the phone. Stupid Stiles. Stupid Scott.

" _Besides, you can't come home. The President needs you!_ "

"You're an idiot."

" _You love me._ "

\-----------------------

"Ms Martin?"

Lydia looks up at the receptionist. "Yes?"

"The President is ready for you."

As the lovely lady leads Lydia to the elevator, Lydia decides that is the greatest sentence anyone has said to her (apart from Stiles' confession of his love for her, of course). 

She's never really taken an interest in the White House, but she does stand impressed by the sheer size of it. She's seen the President's office on television and she hates to admit it, but when the receptionist leads her into the room she's a little dumbfounded by it.

There he is, sitting at his desk with his familiar guards by the door and Mr Metting is already present.

"Ms Martin, how was your flight?" He beams.

"It's safe to say I could get used to First Class." Lydia smiles. "Thank you, again."

"It's the least I can do." He gestures to a chair next to her tutor. "We found another lab of theirs; situated off the coast of Florida. We managed to infiltrate it undercover and got our hands on the serum. It's moving along quite nicely. So it will be hands-on straight away, but I can tell you probably wouldn't have it any other way."

Lydia smiles.

"I've organised transport to your accommodation, a few miles from here. Here are my assistant PA's contact details if you do need anything at all..."

Lydia takes the card and pops it into her purse.

"But apart from that, you both start tomorrow morning at 9 AM." The President smiles. "Details of your work facility are in your accommodations and I personally have handpicked a few candidates for you both to interview to join your team. But, of course, if you feel they aren't successful or you have anyone else in mind, you are more than welcome to run it past me."

"Mr President, can I ask you a question?" Lydia speaks.

"Of course."

"Why are you trusting us both with all of this?" She tilts her head.

He has a look of expectancy, purses his lips then leans forward. "I'm getting the sense that you're very trustworthy people that know when to keep a secret. I can see it in your eyes."

Lydia doesn't dismiss the fact he's only looking at her when he speaks.

\-----------------------

Lydia puts her feet up for the night and decides to go through the candidates she'll be interviewing tomorrow and has a look through the email that the President's assistant PA sent her.

She reaches for her phone after it vibrates, opening a message from Stiles.

_How's the new pad?_

She smiles. Her fingers begin tapping.

_It's fancy. Fully stocked mini fridge, too._

She brings up the first candidate. Karen.

_God, I'm jealous. Currently having to eat with Liam. Scott's gone to pick up Kira. With Malia. This group is so awkward._

Karen seems nice. Graduated from Yale. They'd have lots to talk about.

_So incestuous. What's happening there? Are they both going to share Scott or will they end up ditching him and hooking up?_

Max. Max is cute. Currently coming to an end of an internship at Duke.

_You know, I can totally see that happening. I'm rooting for it._

Ian. Vice President of Kappa Delta 2014. Good grief.

_You promise everything is okay? Is there a reason Kira's finishing her desert vacation to come home or is it just a coincidence?_

_It's just a coindecence. I'll get her to call you tomorrow as confirmation._

Lydia leaves her phone on her stomach as she closes down her laptop. Another message from Stiles.

_I miss you. Can't wait to see you._

Her heart swells.

_Me, too. I don't like distance. At all._

_You know the only time I like distance?_

_When there is distance between you and Liam?_

_Correct! You know me so well. He's a loud eater._

\-----------------------

They decide to hire Karen, Max, and two other candidates, Craig and Jennifer. They are allowed a team of four excluding themselves and more along the line if necessary. Lydia feels happy with who they picked.

"Mr Metting-"

"Lydia, for the thousandth time, call me Charles."

"Charles...will I be graduating MIT later than scheduled if we stay here?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Lydia. They'll graduate you in a heartbeat after this little stunt we're doing." Mr Metting smiles, peering at her from over his glasses.

She nods, bites the top of her pencil. "You've been awfully quiet throughout this. What are your thoughts?"

"The opportunity is fantastic, for us both. But never trust the government. There will always be something underlining the story they tell us."

Lydia leans forward. "Do you think we're doing this for a completely different agenda? What if we do more harm than good?"

"Not a chance."

"How can you be so sure?"

Charles looks up. "Because we're in charge of the serum. And we're going to keep it that way."

Lydia nods as Max approaches the two. "Sorry to disturb...but can I show you something?"

"What is it?" Lydia stands to follow him.

"This is the first rat we've tested the serum on. Two hours in and there are no signs of any affects...vitals are fine, muscles and organs are unaffected. It's as if the serum does absolutely nothing."

"Maybe the effects don't trigger this early. Keep a close eye on it." Lydia instructs.

"There's something else." Jennifer calls out, lifting her eye away from the microscope. "This is weird."

Lydia turns with a raised eyebrow.

"The Fibrinogen in the serum is _active_." Jennifer frowns. "Correct me if I'm wrong - and I'm positive I'm not - but fibrinogen is meant to be-"

"Inactive. You're right." Lydia shares the same look of confusion.

"Gonna add to the level of weird." Craig calls out. "The blood plasma used in the serum is from a _wolf_."

Lydia freezes and spins around on her heels. "Did you say a _wolf_?"

"I know, right? What a weird, specific type of blood to put in a serum." Craig laughs.

Well.

Lydia's beginning to get an uneasy feeling about this.

\-----------------------

Max gets them all together for a team bonding night. They head to a bar in town (minus Mr Metting, he's quite the old grump when it comes to socializing. Lydia learned that earlier on in the year). It's pretty much a dive - but they have hard liquor and a pool table so Lydia's content.

It takes her mind off of the serum and what it was actually made for. Well, until Max decides to bring it up.

"So, what's the story behind the serum? Is it weapon-based? End-of-the-world type of shit?" He takes a swig of his beer as him and Lydia watch Craig suck at playing pool.

"I can't believe I get to say this, but that's classified." Lydia smirks.

Max laughs and shakes his head.

When Lydia pulls out her phone and sees Stiles or the others haven't messaged, she frowns.

_Hey, everything okay? Call me when you can, there's something really weird about this serum._

She puts her phone away. 

"So, who've you left behind?" 

She looks up at Max. "What?" 

"Graduating from MIT, grew up in California. You must have left people to fly over here." He replies. 

Lydia raises an eyebrow. 

"Hell yeah, I've done my research." He laughs. 

Lydia sighs. "Mother, boyfriend, friends. They're currently all together having...fun. Without me." Careful what you say, Lydia. 

"I get it. Left my fiance in New Haven. Distance is difficult." 

Lydia pulls a face before smacking his arm. "Shut up. It's not even been two days for you." 

He laughs again. 

"You know, a year ago, I never thought I'd end up working for the _President of the..._ " 

Lydia is listening, she really is. But then her eyes wander to the flat screen television in front of them which is showing Fox News and her heart is plummeting in her chest because Liam is looking right back at her with his fangs showing and his eyes glowing. 

She blinks. Looks again. Oh god. Oh _god_. 

"What the hell...?" Craig looks up at the screen as the bartender turns up the volume. Everyone's watching. _Everyone's watching_. 

" _The footage was recorded earlier this evening by an unknown source. It has not yet been confirmed what we are looking at, but we can all agree that it is terrifying._ " 

Lydia's body has gone cold. 

" _Let's play this back with audio._ " 

She can't move. What the hell is happening? 

The video starts with the camera turned to a face. 

Monroe. 

Lydia's blood boils as she watches Monroe turn the camera to Liam. They've trapped him in the woods. Lydia's absolutely furious. 

" _Ladies and gentlemen,_ " Monroe begins to speak. " _People of America._ This _is what is walking our streets, murdering innocent people, changing our world for the worst. It needs to be stopped._ " 

Max has mumbled something to Lydia but she doesn't hear, her pulse is thumping through her head. 

" _This is not a human. This is a_ monster." 

Her palms sweat. She needs to call Stiles. 

" _A lot of speculation is circulating that the video is fake, but it has been confirmed that the video was recorded and sent live to the White House earlier this evening and the video has been traced back to a small town in California called Beacon Hills._ " 

She's going to pass out. 

Max turns to her. "Isn't that where you're from?" 

She doesn't react. She pulls her eyes away from the screen and brings out her phone. "I need to make a phone call." 

Lydia steps outside without a word and leans against the wall. She calls Stiles. 

No answer. 

So she leaves a message. And then another. 

"Stiles, I swear to god. You need to call me back right now otherwise I'm coming home. Just let me know you're okay. _Please._ " 

She's ready to cry as she begins to locate a cab. She calls Scott next. No answer. 

Malia. No answer. 

Kira. No answer. 

"God _damnit_!" She screams as a taxi pulls up and she gets in. 

She's about to tell the driver her address until she locks eyes with them through the rear-view mirror. Her eyes widen. 

"Mr President." She's scared now. "What are you doing here? What is going on?" 

"We need to talk." 

"I...can't- I don't have time. I need to go home." Lydia's voice wavers. 

"You can't." 

"What?" 

"I'm sorry, Lydia. You can't go home. I need you here." The President replies. 

Now she's scared and _angry_. "What the hell is going on?!" 

"Please don't be alarmed. We need to talk in private." His voice remains in an even tone.

"Don't be _alarmed?!_ You've kidnapped me!" Lydia yells.

"I haven't _kidnapped_ you. Hop on in the front if it makes you feel any better."

"I think I'll stay in the back." She spits.

"Look, we're in bother. Big bother. And you're the only person I trust." He begins, pulling onto the highway.

Lydia is baffled. Completely baffled.

"We barely _know_ eachother. How on earth am I the only person you trust?!"

He looks at her in the rear-view mirror.

"Because you're a banshee."

Lydia's mouth clamps shut. She's sweating now, she can feel it on her scalp. "What the hell is a-"

"Don't play dumb. I'm aware of your abilities, I'm aware of your pack. McCall, Tate, Dunbar, Yukimura. _Stilinski._ "

Lydia's eyes go dark. "What the hell do you want."

" _Help_. I want help, Lydia."

"With what?"

He brings out a hand so she can see. And then he reveals a set of claws.

_Well._

"With saving the supernatural."


	3. Bring back the water, let your ships roll in

**YEAR: 2014**

Lydia's in some secret apartment pacing back and forth; confused, angry, a little bit dazed and very annoyed.

"This better be worth my time. As you're very aware, I have a pack who need my help."

The President sits on the couch and places two cups of coffee on the table.

"Lydia, will you please stop _pacing_? Jesus, sit down."

She may have snarled - she's not sure - but she gives in and takes a seat. She's very overwhelmed.

"I know what the serum does. Roughly." He begins.

Lydia blinks. A blood vessel bursts somewhere in her brain.

"These organizations, they've come together to specifically diminish the supernatural. They've been hunting us for a year or so now, which you're aware of."

"How much do you know about me? My pack?" Lydia frowns.

"Plenty. I've been monitoring what's been going on in Beacon Hills for a while now. I know about the Nemeton, Kanimas, Chimeras, Hellhounds, the Nogitsune, Ghost Riders, Dread Doctors...you want me to go on?"

"No, thank you." Lydia deadpans.

"Monroe has managed to spread this...group of hatred globally. They've been planning a way to wipe out the supernatural existence and they've finally found a way. The serum removes all supernatural cells from the body."

"Oh, god. This makes so much sense." Lydia covers her hands with her face. She thinks back to the wolf blood, the active fibrinogen, the test rat...it's all clicked.

"This is why I chose you." The President sighs. "I do believe that your knowledge of the supernatural, as well as your outstanding intelligence, will be enough to stop this."

"How? How am _I_ supposed to stop this?" Lydia exhales.

"The antiserum. You can still make it. Especially now you know what it does."

"You think the antiserum is still enough to prevent the extinction of the supernatural race?" Lydia sits up. "What about the footage of my pack member in werewolf form on national television? You think people won't be frightened by this? Won't want to fight back?"

The President sighs, wringing his hands together.

"I'm sorry, Mr President, but there are _so_ many more Monroe's out there than you think."

"I know that." He whispers. "That's why I planned ahead. I have a few contacts scattered across the globe; supernatural, mainly. They've been gathering supplies, weapons, armies. A few secret bases here and there."

"An army? Big enough to fight back?"

"No, not yet. But we can't give up because there's more of them. You never gave up before."

"Our pack could handle it before. This...this is huge. Beyond our control." Lydia squeaks. "I need to call them."

The President stands as Lydia does. "You cannot ring them."

Lydia looks up. "Why not?"

"The video was sent to someone in the _White House_. Things are heated, they're tearing through intel on Beacon Hills as we speak. And eventually, Beacon Hills will lead to you."

Lydia stutters. "I need to know they're okay."

"Lydia, _please_. No one can know you're making an antiserum and we have limited time until heads will start pointing in your direction. Do you understand that?"

The pack. _Stiles_.

"But...how will I know they're okay?" She's ready to cry now. She wants to be left alone.

"I'll try my hardest to get updates without raising suspicion, I promise. But you can't save them without this antiserum. I know it, _you_ know it. Monroe's getting exactly what she wants if you go. You'll be fighting the world with no backup."

She pulls a hand through her hair, nausea hitting her. "Well, I'm going to need to start as soon as possible."

"You'll carry on as normal. We can't raise suspicion."

She sighs, her hands on her hips. "You promise you'll try and find out if they're okay?"

The President nods. "I promise."

Reluctantly, she lets everything sink in for the final time, hands her phone to the President of the United States and watches him drop it to the ground and stamp on it.

\-----------------------

"Morning, everyone." Lydia calls out. She remains calm and collected and she's doing very well so far, even if it is just one sentence.

"Morning. Did you see the news?" Mr Metting calls out.

"I did."

"It's insane." Jennifer raises her eyebrows.

"It's barbaric." Mr Metting snorts. "These things have been running under our noses without us even realizing it."

_Come on, Charles._

"I know. Mindblowing, isn't it?" Lydia exhales, making eye contact with Max. He doesn't ask questions, which is great. "We mustn't let this distract us, though. We have work to do. The deadline for the antiserum has shortened massively so we need to create one by yesterday."

"Since when?" Charles asks.

"The assistant PA emailed me." Lydia says cooly. "Did you not get it?"

Lydia's brain has been scrambled since yesterday evening. The one thing that's going through her mind is how on earth are her team going to help her make an antiserum when they most probably won't be able to find what it does. They'll be running around in circles.

So she's decided that she's going to have to go behind their backs and play things carefully. She's already taken a sample of her own blood and added the serum to it, and _hopefully_ it does what she's imagined it would and then they can find a way to reverse it.

By lunchtime, the rest of the team are fed up as they cannot come up with a reason behind the serum and Lydia has chewed all of her nails off. What doesn't make it easier is that she cannot stop thinking about Stiles and the pack and she just wants some kind of news. Anything.

She requests to see the President on her break and she takes the results from her blood sample with her.

"I'm hoping that face means you've found something." He brightens.

"I think I have." Lydia sits down in front of his desk and pulls the results from her purse, placing them in front of the President.

"I want to pretend that I know what all this means, but I can't."

"Those results, there, show an irregular amount of activity in the white blood cells of my original sample. These are different to, say for instance, _your_ blood samples as you can heal. I cannot. These white blood cells are irregular due to my brain activity from my banshee abilities. Now, on the second piece of paper are the results once I've added the serum. The white blood cells are normal."

"Jesus."

"Somehow, they have created a serum that can remove supernatural _brain_ activity." Lydia explains in disbelief. "The serum has managed to wipe out a power that is only really in my mind. And my scream."

"How is that possible?" The President asks.

"I have no idea. But if they've managed something as advanced as this, I can only imagine they have covered all aspects of the supernatural. So whatever supernatural creature gets shot with this serum is basically not supernatural anymore."

"Okay...okay. Well this is progress, right? We didn't know this before."

"True. But I need proof that it works for every supernatural creature. For all we know, they have made a serum for each individual supernatural creature and it was mere coincidence that you managed to steal the banshee one."

"You want my blood?"

"If you wouldn't mind."

\-----------------------

The serum eliminates _all_ supernatural trace. No matter who touches it. The President's blood confirms that.

It's been a week since Lydia discovered this and she's not any closer to a solution.

So many questions run through her mind; have they already started using the serum? How did they get the particles in the serum to eliminate supernatural cells? Are they using supernatural creatures? Locking them up, harvesting them? Have any supernatural creatures gone missing lately?

Stiles could help her. He could get to the bottom of this through the FBI. They would be so much closer to ending this if they were working together.

Lydia looks around her empty (secret) apartment. She lives here now, through no decision of her own. The only person who knows of her whereabouts is-

"Evening." As if on cue, in walks the President, locking the door behind himself.

"Someone's eventually going to follow you back here." Lydia raises her eyebrows. "Any news?"

"They're alive."

Lydia jumps up. "All of them?"

"They're all alive. They managed to rescue Mr Dunbar from Monroe and they are all alive. No casualties as of yet."

Lydia lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding. "Oh, thank god. Thank you."

"It's the least I can do."

"They're alive." Lydia confirms, sitting back down. She hopes they're all sticking together, her mother included. She hopes they're all looking after each other, she hopes Melissa's making sure they still eat, no matter how severe the situation. She hopes they're all making jokes to lighten the situation. She hopes they're not worried about her.

"We have a slight problem, though."

Lydia snaps out of it. "What?"

"We had an unplanned video conference today with the government body of pretty much every country."

"And?"

"A lot of them aren't happy, about the recent knowledge of werewolves. The majority have voted to take matters into their owns hands."

" _Shit_. That's not good. That's not good, is it? They can make up their own rules on this one. They can kill us all off!"

"Only on their own soil."

"Oh, much better!" Lydia cheers.

"It's not our problem to deal with at the moment, Lydia. More and more videos and stories are appearing online. Factual evidence of the supernatural. This is getting out of hand very quickly." The President pushes.

"I'm aware of that. I'm trying my hardest, alright? This is difficult and it's going to take time."

She knows it's going to take time. Because every test she runs, every antiserum she tries is failing and not eliminating the original serum and she needs _help_ , help from her very smart team but she can't ask because they can't _know_.

But the following day, Lydia thinks... _fuck it_. The government can hide things, (hell, the President managed to hide that he's a _werewolf_ ) so why can't she?

"Max? Could you come over here?" She calls out, her glasses slipping down her nose.

"What's up."

"I've managed to dissect the serum into as many parts as I could. I've reversed these parts but I'm left with the antigens and the preservatives. I can't seem to reverse them."

Max stares in shock. "How...the _hell_ did you do this? We've gotten nowhere for two weeks and you've managed to rewrite something we don't even understand."

_Keep your fucking voice down, you idiot._

"I've used different samples of blood. Widened the variety of options we have." Lydia shrugs.

"What blood samples?" Max asks.

Lydia pulls in her lips. "Human...blood samples."

"We've tried human blood samples. What's made this any different?"

"I have no idea, but it's worked. So help me."

Lydia's sceptical this is going to work out, but Max does help her and they're starting to get somewhere. Hours fly past and Lydia's hopes are through the roof because they're so _close_.

And then Mr Metting walks in.

"Lydia, I've just checked the system to see if we could work on previous results. Why did you submit yours and the President's blood samples earlier on in the week?"

Oh, _shit_.

"Ugh, something the president asked me to do."

"What was it for?" Charles asks.

She turns to face him. "I have no idea. Why don't you go ask him?"

Mr Metting gives her a long, strange look and something tells Lydia that their history together is irrelevant now. He leaves the room.

Max frowns at her, keeping his voice to a whisper. "Why did you submit your own blood?"

Lydia's really starting to panic now - the rest of her team are staring at her from the other side of the lab.

"Like I said, I don't know. The President asked me to."

"And you didn't question it?" Max presses.

"Listen, Max. We are running out of time." Lydia whispers. "Can we please make this work?"

"What's going on, Lydia?"

"Nothing. Just trust me."

They carry on in silence.

\-----------------------

A month after the reveal of the supernatural and people are starting to become impatient. Riots are happening all over the country (quite a few outside the White House). This has led to a few of the supernatural speaking up and fighting back. Which means more footage, more knowledge to the outside world, and more hatred.

Some countries in Europe have brought in a law to arrest any visible supernatural on sight and use gunfire if the suspect doesn't comply. There have been a few confirmed casualties.

It's getting scary. And to make matters worse, the President has lost all contact with Beacon Hills. So Lydia is back to square one. Not knowing.

Even though it's all getting very heated, Lydia has told herself that she still has time.

Then the Vice President happened.

"He's gone over my head. Completely!" The President yells, pacing Lydia's apartment.

It's her turn to make the coffee.

"He's given officials the authority to shoot on sight! Police force, the army, the _FBI_." He directs his look at Lydia. "Your boyfriend is being instructed to shoot his friends."

"He won't, though."

"You're missing the point, Lydia. How many humans do you know who work in the line of fire protect the supernatural in their spare time?"

"...Stiles? His father." Lydia pauses. " _Scott's_ father."

The President sighs.

"I get it...I get it. It's bad." She mumbles, placing two cups of coffee on the table.

"Really bad. I'm eventually not going to have a say in this. We'll have no control." He looks like he's ready to give up.

"Except for the antiserum."

He nods.

"That counts as something, right?" Lydia smiles.

"It does."

Lydia thinks about it on her way to work. How much it counts, that is. Nearly walks past the havoc being caused down the busy street next to her. Protests. Fires. Angry people. She swallows and walks faster.

She feels a little safer in her lab. And when she walks in, the look on Max's face tells her they've finally done it.

But then the look on Charles' face tells her he's done something stupid.

And in walks the Vice President.

"Lydia Martin? Could we borrow you for a second?"

Three more officials and two security guards follow him in and Lydia feels her skin grow cold. "Can I ask what this is about?"

"We'll explain in the hall."

She glances over at Max who looks petrified for her. "I'd appreciate it if you were to tell me now."

The Vice President glares at her.

She folds her arms. "Or I won't be following you anywhere."

There's silence in the room for a couple of seconds until one of the officials pass the Vice President a small machine the size of his hand. It has a screen and a red light shining out of the bottom.

"Lydia Martin, you are under arrest for possessing an illegal weapon."

She squints. "A _weapon?_ What weapon?"

Just as she thinks that this can't be good, the Vice President steps forward with his guards and they grab hold of her arms to place a pair of handcuffs on.

The Vice President stands in front of Lydia, looks her in the eyes before pressing the end of the machine into her forearm.

Lydia hisses as the feel of a needle pierces her skin. He retracts it and stares at the screen.

"It seems that the weapon...is you."

Lydia's heart drops.

"Your assumptions were correct, Mr Metting."

She looks over to her tutor in betrayal and rage. _Years_ they spent side by side.

"She's supernatural."

Out of time.

Before anyone can say anything else, Lydia twists her arms from the men's grasp and holds her hands out either side. She moves her head in both directions, pushing a scream towards them both before they crash into the walls.

_Jesus,_ that felt good.

"Backup, lab B, right wing. _Now_." The Vice President presses a finger to his ear before stepping back.

The three officials move forward to approach Lydia as she holds out her hands and opens her lungs and launches all three of them into the glass wall in front. The whole thing shatters and the men go down.

Lydia's heart is racing. She turns to Max who is pushed up against a wall, pure terror on his face and the rest of Lydia's team, including Mr Metting, have made a run for it.

"Ms Martin." The Vice President steps back. "We don't need to turn to violence. We can rectify this."

Lydia nearly misses what he says. _Nearly_.

"Rectify?"

And then it clicks. The serum. The video of Liam being sent to the White House by Monroe. 

They've been working together the whole time.

She's had enough. Completely. So she lifts her hands, takes a deep breath, pulls back up upper body and screams.

And she gets a sense of enjoyment out of watching the Vice President fly through the doors of the lab and crash onto the ground.

An alarm starts to pierce through her ears and red lights flash above her. She needs to think.

Turning behind her, she spots the elevator that takes you down to the parking lot and thinks of the worst plan in the world.

Lydia turns back around and uses all her strength to start pulling the damaged glass doors back together until she notices Max still standing there.

"Max, you need to leave."

He remains still.

Lydia groans as the doors won't budge, so she lets go and turns to her employee. "They're going to come for me and they're going to bring guns. You've got to go."

Seconds go past where they just stare at each other, and the look on Max's face terrifies Lydia because _he's_ terrified.

But then he approaches her and grabs the frame of one of the glass doors and starts pushing.

She steps back.

He's _helping?_

"What are you doing?" She breathes.

He stands up straight and takes a breath. "My fiance's a werewolf."

Lydia stands still in shock.

"I've got to help." There's a little desperation in his voice. "I can't stand by and watch this happen to innocent people."

Lydia's throat tightens. "You don't think we're monsters?"

A little laugh escapes his mouth. "Not at all. My fiance is the most beautiful and incredible woman I have ever met."

Oh, thank _god_. Someone is on _their_ side.

"If we weren't in such shit right now, you'd be getting a raise." Lydia relaxes her shoulders.

Max laughs. "I'll hold you to that."

Lydia feels as if her muscles are going to explode out of her arms, but they manage it. They push all of the cabinets and shelves in front of the glass and start to gather as much as they can.

"I know it's not much use now, seeing as we didn't make the antiserum and we don't have another lab to continue our work, but grab as much as you can because we're taking it with us. Laptops, research, equipment-"

"Lydia." Max interrupts her. "Slow down. I made the antiserum."

She stops stuffing her laptop into a rucksack and blinks at him. " _What?_ "

"I was about to tell you before all... _this_ happened. We did it. We've got an antiserum."

Lydia can't remember the last time she felt this much relief flush through her body, but she's smiling and gasping and throwing her arms around Max.

"I am so glad I hired you, you incredible human. You have potentially just saved the supernatural race." Lydia rushes, stepping back and gathering everything you can.

"Yeah, you've got to explain everything once we're out of here." Max replies, storing the antiserum in the correct case and gathering up the materials they used to create it.

"I promise I will. We need to find the President after this."

"The President?" Max frowns.

"Yep. He's a werewolf." Lydia replies, approaching the elevator.

Max stops in his tracks. "Holy _shit_."

They manage to escape down the elevator shaft after the authorities cut the electricity and get to the bottom floor. They both pry open the doors and jump down the remaining distance and run to Lydia's car.

The fire exit door bursts open and several figures with guns pile out.

"Get in the car." Lydia hisses. She presses the unlock button on her keys and they both start to sprint.

As they jump in, the sound of gunshots ring through the air and some hit her car.

"Oh my god. Oh my god." Max yells.

Lydia starts the car and as she heads for the parking lot exit, her tyres screech underneath them. They fly up the ramp and onto the busy road in front.

"Lydia, have you ever driven like this before?" Max asks with worry as he holds onto the door handle with dear life.

She shakes her head. "I've never gone over the speed limit in my entire life."

As they fly through a set of traffic lights, Max gulps. "So, this is the end?"

"Most probably." Lydia calls back, her knuckles white against the steering wheel.

"Can I call my mom?"

"No."

\-----------------------

They meet the President at Lydia's apartment and they manage to get a ride out of Washington to Virginia where the President's secret army has a hideout.

When they arrive, the warehouse seems completely empty and the surrounding land looks like it hasn't been touched in years.

"Sir, are you sure this is the right place?" Lydia calls out as they step out of their ride and watch them drive away, the tyres kicking up dust as they spin.

"Yes. These are the coordinates I received." He replies, his eyes squinting to protect them from the dust.

Silence sits between the three of them as they stare at the warehouse, waiting for something.

It's not big, Lydia can see. It can maybe store a couple of school buses; is this all the back up they have?

She's about to throw her arms in the air, give up and say she's going to Beacon Hills when one of the large doors creak open slightly, revealing an old man with a wicker hat on top of his head.

"Can I help you?"

Lydia turns to the President. He steps forward.

"These weather conditions have been incredible, haven't they?"

Lydia and Max look at each other, either just as sceptical as the other.

More silence, and when Lydia thinks that this is total bullshit the old man smiles at the President and opens the door a little more. "Welcome, Mr President." 

Surprise and relief settles through Lydia as the two men shake hands.

"I hope the ride up here was okay for you all." The old man says. "Is this all of you?"

"Unfortunately, yes. We're low in numbers but we do have something that will be extremely helpful."

"Well, let's stop standing around and get you inside. I bet you're starving." The man smiles at Lydia, she can't help but smile back. "My wife makes the most amazing-"

It was all going _so_ smoothly.

Until Lydia watches a bullet shred through the elderly man's head.

And then everything's in slow motion. The President diving in front of her and Max. Lydia hiding Max behind her. Bullets spraying the side of the warehouse. Two - maybe three - helicopters appearing out of nowhere and circling them from above. Sniper after sniper shooting from every corner.

Lydia's crouching behind a tractor with Max under her arm when twenty figures in camo run out from the warehouse and start firing back. Then another ten. Then more. And then more. What the hell is going on?

"Stay here!" Lydia yells at Max above the noise before moving slowly around the tractor. Bullets are being fired from the helicopters but one of the figures in camo has managed to hit the centre of the rotor and smoke pours out of it. Further in the distance, the President is fighting two snipers quite well, and Lydia wouldn't be nervous if he didn't have multiple bullet wounds in his back and legs.

And then she senses it. The noise around her councils out and everything slows down and something in her is urging her to look at the last helicopter standing. There's one man hanging out of the side and the gun in his hand is screaming at Lydia, she just doesn't know why. All she knows is that something very bad is about to happen and she's going to scream.

She smells it first. It smells like what it smelled like in the palm of her hands when she unconsciously attacked Derek and when she found it in Coach's whistle and when it was injected into the hole in the side of her head.

Lydia stares at the gun aiming for the President. She looks at the man holding it who is trying to get a better shot. She can hear the bullet ready to fly through the air.

Lydia's breath catches in her throat.

" _Wolfsbane._ "

The next thing she knows, she's sprinting across the yard of the warehouse, her hands up and aiming for the two snipers fighting the President.

"Mr President, _run!_ " She screams, knocking one sniper down with her scream.

But as he turns, the wolfsbane bullet plants itself straight in his heart.

" _No!_ " Lydia gasps as he collapses on the ground, staring at her with loss and confusion.

She skids to a halt next to him, holding his head as black blood begins to pour from his mouth.

"Mr President, come on. _Come on_." Lydia shakes as he struggles for air.

He fumbles around to find her hand so Lydia takes his and brings it to her chest. "Ly-Lydia-"

"You're going to be fine, we're going to get you help. O-Okay? Me...me and Max, we can fix this. We can _fix_ this."

"Lydia...listen to me." He wheezes.

Lydia swallows, her heart pounding. They're surrounded by the figures in camo and they seem to be winning.

"Everything...you need, everything I have worked on is on the USB in my wallet in...in this pocket." He taps his jacket pocket with shaking hands.

"You don't need to be talking like this." Lydia replies, desperation in her voice. "We're winning, your army is winning."

"Do not let anyone have that USB stick. You keep it on you at all times." The President coughs on some blood.

Lydia spins her head around, looking for someone - _anyone_ \- to help them. "Max? Max!"

"Lydia, look at me." The President mumbles. " _Lydia._ "

She turns to him, a scream lodged in her throat.

"You are in charge now. Do you hear me? _You are in charge._ "

Lydia inhales. "What?"

"I want you in charge once I'm gone. I...meant it when I said you are the only person I trust."

Lydia shakes her head, clinging to his hand. "I-I can't. You need to stay alive because I _can't_."

"Yes, you can. Everything you need is on that stick." Then he's wheezing and coughing and more blood is pouring out of his mouth and Lydia's hands and shirt and knees are covered in it.

"W-what if I fail? What if none of this goes to plan?" She squeaks.

The President smiles. "There's a...there's a plan Z on the stick. Only to be used if necessary."

Lydia's mind is spinning and her hands are slippery and she can't see with the tears in her eyes.

"You can do this, Lydia." The President whispers. "I hope you find your family again."

Lydia shakes her head. "This can't be it. I can't do this on my own. I need you here. I need you _alive_."

He doesn't answer.

" _Sir._ " Lydia shakes him. "Sir, wake up."

She's squeezing his hand and shaking his body but his eyes are distant and her lungs release a scream that can only be made for death.

The ground shakes and the last helicopter explodes but someone manages to fire one more bullet straight through Lydia's shoulder and she stumbles back on her knees.

Then she sees a man in camo in front of her, telling her to get inside and then Max is next to her trying to drag her away but she can't leave the President _lying_ here and then she remembers the USB stick and she fumbles in his jacket and retrieves his wallet and it's slipping in her hand and her shoulder's pulsing and bleeding and all she can smell is _blood_.

That's when her body gives up fighting and lets Max wrap an arm around her stomach and pull her away. When they get to the doors of the warehouse he flings her arm over his shoulder and helps her walk. They follow the military through the warehouse and then down a set of steps hidden under the floor.

It's dark when they get down and it's hot but then one of the soldiers unlock a huge metal door and light blinds her completely.

They step through and Lydia's feeling very dizzy but she can see very well that they're in an underground bunker and it's _huge_ and they are so many people down here. Like the whole town above came down below.

The soldiers lead them to some sort of medical room and Max places Lydia onto a bed.

Lydia looks around - a few soldiers from upstairs are lying or sitting in the beds with the result of a few bullet wounds.

A doctor and two nurses rush to Lydia's side and begin hooking her up to an IV and rip the material around her shoulder. She looks down and sees all the black and red and wants to cry. She looks at Max and a soldier.

"We need to go get his body, we can't leave him up there."

"It's not safe yet, but we will." The soldier reassures her. "We will."

She nods, hissing when the nurses begin to clean the wound. "You're alright, sweetie. The bullet went straight through and out the other side so we can patch you straight up."

Max is pale and clammy and has worry written all over his face but he smiles at Lydia and grabs her hand. "It'll be a cool scar."

Lydia nods through the dizziness, leaning her head back against the pillow. "One to add to the collection."


	4. In my heart she left a hole

**YEAR: 2014**

Lydia blacks out for a little while and when she comes to, her shoulder is bandaged and her arm is in a sling. The nurses help her shower and she learns a little about how they came to be down here. They explained that they'd heard about a movement to protect the supernatural. Both are human, but they have family members who are not and wanted to be part of it.

Lydia's happy that there are more Melissa's and Noah's in the world.

When she's clean and in new clothes, Max leads her to a boardroom of some sort, where there's a table in the centre and some computers scattered around. Several men already seated are staring at her upon arrival and she plasters on a solid expression. A gentleman in military uniform asks her to take a seat.

"How are you feeling, Ms Martin?" She learns that his name is General Mackenzie.

"Better." She nods.

"I've been made aware that you were with the President in his last moments. We're hoping he said or gave you any information before passing."

"He...did." Lydia pulls in her lips. "He put me in charge."

The room of people turn to face her, Max including.

"He put you in charge?" Mackenzie frowns.

Lydia nods. She's really tired.

"With all due respects, Ms Martin, we have no idea who you are."

Lydia shrugs. "Trust me, I'm just as confused as you are."

"Are you saying you're not up for the task?" A man asks from across the table. "We should really have someone who-"

"She can do it." Max rolls his eyes. It's his turn to have everyone's eyes on him.

"Max-" Lydia whispers.

"Of course she can do it. Did you not _see_ her up there?" He nods his head towards the ceiling. "She's a badass and a goddamn genius who won't stop until everyone is either protected or safe. Don't get me wrong, I understand you gentlemen don't know Lydia. _I_ barely know her - and I'm sorry to speak as if you're not present, Lydia - but Jesus _Christ_ this woman right here; she's one of a kind."

Lydia cannot help but stare.

"Gentlemen, the love of my life, my wife-to-be is a werewolf. I have no idea where she is or whether she's safe. I don't know what is going on. I don't know what just happened outside. I don't know much at all, really...but the one thing I _do_ know is that if there needs to be one person that can save the supernatural- the _human_ race, get us back to our loved ones and end this total madness then I want that person to be Lydia Martin."

Lydia lets her good shoulder sag and as Max looks over at her with his arms folded and winks at her, she is doused in an aching pain as she realises how much she misses Stiles.

Max stands up and gains everyone's attention once more. "Come on, gentlemen. She literally knocked two snipers clean off the ground outside with her _scream_."

\-----------------------

A month later, Lydia is sling-free.

She knows this base inside out; the rooms, the people, their jobs, how recently they came here.

She has made contact with the other bases and is in communication with them, but not one person knows the whereabouts of Scott and his pack.

Her first plan as the person in charge is to infiltrate one of their enemy's bases, top to bottom. She wants to know how many antiserums they're making, _how_ they're making them and hopefully, can grab a couple of employers to question when they get back.

When it gets to them carrying out the plan, Lydia is ready to join them. Mackenzie thinks otherwise.

"You cannot go out there without combat training."

Lydia rolls her eyes. "I think I have enough skill to get me by."

"Ms Martin, I'm strongly against this. I think you need to reconsider." Mackenzie frowns as Lydia helps a few other soldiers gather supplies and weapons.

She turns to him. "I promise that when we get back, I will undergo combat training."

Mackenzie raises an eyebrow. "And what if you _don't_ make it back?"

"Then I guess you'll be training Max for combat." Lydia smiles before tugging on her bulletproof vest.

Mackenzie sighs, clearly beaten.

He and Lydia round up their team of twenty-five and load everything onto their military truck. (Lydia's hoping they can gather some more forms transport on their journey).

It'll take at least two days to get to Idaho, and Lydia so desperately wants to incorporate Beacon Hills into their journey. She'll run it past Mackenzie when they're travelling back.

The journey is long and boring. They manage to find back roads along the highway to avoid the gates the government has set up where they can test everyone that drives through. It won't stay this way for long though - at some point, these gates will be everywhere.

It gets to the second day of travelling and Lydia's starting to notice the world really change. The roads are quiet, barely anyone around. More cameras are installed; nearly on every lamppost. And as they head into Kentucky, she sees a sign on a billboard that reads "curfew: 9 PM".

She sleeps through that night and when she wakes up, she sees a sign for California and her stomach twists and her heart aches. She wants to tell the driver to _turn left, turn left_.

They eventually make it to Idaho. The coordinates lead them to a facility that looks closed down. They leave their vehicle parked in the mountains out of the way and walk to the facility, getting into position.

They cut the wired fence and climb through and separate, surrounding the facility. Mackenzie leads five men through one fire exit and another six men, including Lydia, enter through the other. The rest of her men stay outside and two monitor the vehicle.

When they get inside, everything is quiet. Lydia stands straight against a wall and they wait until someone passes by; a woman in a lab coat holding a clipboard saunters past and Lydia steps out and grabs her, covers her mouth and pins her against the wall.

Her soldiers check the lady for any weapons or forms of communication and they tie her hands together.

"You're going to lead us to your lab where they're creating the serum." Lydia whispers close to the woman's face before covering her mouth with duct tape. Lydia pushes her forward and her soldiers follow behind, their guns pointing and aiming for anyone who they approach.

The lady leads them down a few hallways and to a set of stairs. They get to the bottom floor and when the lady opens the doors, there's a hall full of scientists. They turn and stare at the group in bewilderment.

Lydia sighs. It was going so well.

She pushes the woman out of the way and aims a scream through the hallway ahead, pushing a few bodies back. Herself and her team rush through the hallway splitting into two teams as a handful of security guards appear. Lydia ducks from a fist, then an elbow and uses her ankle to trip up the guard. He falls to the ground and she lands a punch to his face, knocking him out. She opens the first door as the alarm sounds above her and the lights begin to flash red.

She's made it into a lab where the serum is being made and there's a couple of frightened scientists.

"Against the wall, now." Lydia instructs.

They do as their told while Lydia looks around. Nothing looks out of place.

Lydia turns to one man. "You. How are you making this serum?"

He stays quiet with his hands in the air. 

"You've got thirty seconds to explain." Lydia approaches him, flexing her fingers out slightly so her voice can vibrate through and push a light soundwave through the man's shoulder. His eyes bulge in bewilderment as he feels the force run through his body.

"Okay! Okay. We gather materials th-that work against the blood cells of the supernatural-"

"What materials?" Lydia asks.

"D-different-all different kinds of materials! It varies, depending on what the supernatural creature does."

"You've got twenty seconds left. What are the materials?" Lydia hisses.

"I-I can't say! They'll kill me if I say-"

"And I'll kill you if you _don't say_. Fifteen seconds!"

"We-we use-"

"Jim, shut up!" The woman next to him yells. "They won't just kill you, they'll kill all of us."

"Ten seconds, Jim." Lydia tilts her head, pushing further into his shoulder. "You best make your mind up."

"Supernatural creatures! We've been harvesting supernatural creatures." Jim gives up.

Lydia pauses. "What?"

"G-go down those stairs and when you get to the door, enter '5,9,6,1'. You'll see for yourself." Jim rushes, staring into her eyes.

Lydia's body drives into panic mode. She turns to the stairs behind her and dreads to think what is down there.

She swallows. "I suggest you all leave, right now." They scurry out as one of her team members walks into the room in question.

"Charlie, come with me." Lydia breathes, rushing to the door. She runs down the stairs, enters the code and pushes the door open.

She stops in her tracks.

Charlie halts behind her. "Oh... _god_."

Lydia feels her skin crawl. Her stomach flip. Her eyes sting. "This is worse than we thought."

She steps forward slowly, her eyes scanning the room full of people. Their bodies hooked up and drained into a machine in front of her. Hundreds of dead or dying bodies. _Hundreds_.

"Go get two more men. Check everyone's pulse." Lydia instructs, unable to peel her eyes off of the poor people being hung like cattle. She steps through them all, studying all of their faces to see if she recognises any of them but the smell gets the better of her so she rushes and reaches another door.

When she opens it, she's hit with the smell of sweat and urine and god knows what else. It's dark, but she can hear whispers and quiet moans and cries. And when her eyes begin to focus properly in the dark, it's what she pictured but worse. So much worse.

Either side of the large, long room are cages. Rows of cages stacked on top of one another.

Lydia feels a little numb, in a nightmare-like-state until she starts to hear them all calling out in the dark. She steps forward, her eyes adjusting to the light and sees people after people after people squashed into the cages, barely clothed, skinny, withering away. 

They're talking to themselves; some are crying, some are laughing. All completely crazed.

Charlie comes into the room with two other men and they stop at the sight. Lydia turns to them, stunned and shocked.

"Ma'am, what the hell are we going to do?" Charlie asks, his eyes wide as he looks inside of the cages.

"We need to get everyone out. We need to get them back with us." Lydia breathes.

"We don't have enough _room_." One soldier says.

"Then find some." Lydia snaps. "I don't care if we have to steal cars or make one ourselves. We take everyone with us."

Lydia radios Mackenzie shortly after and he informs her that they've found two more military trucks and a helicopter. _Perfect_. Now they need to find a way to get everyone out.

Lydia doesn't know what mindset these people are in. They could be ready to kill. Lydia certainly would be if she were in their position.

Mackenzie has the trucks and the helicopter ready outside and brings all the men down to Lydia. She opens one cage at a time and allows two people to each of her men.

When it's her turn, she takes a lady and a young boy and leads them up the stairs. The lady turns to her, confused and hurt and on the verge of breaking. "Are you rescuing us?"

Lydia nods when they get outside. The woman and the boy squint from the blinding light. Lydia wonders how long they've been kept locked up. "Yes."

The lady begins to cry as she steps into the truck.

Once they have everyone out, Lydia finds Mackenzie. "What about the ones being harvested?"

Mackenzie grimaces and looks like he may throw up. "All dead."

Lydia nods, taking one last look at the facility before jumping in the passenger seat of a truck.

They run into company on their way out, but Lydia's men in the helicopter above manage to shoot the attackers down.

They also managed to take a staff member hostage.

\-----------------------

When they pass the sign for California again, Lydia turns to Mackenzie as he drives.

"I need to make a pit stop." She says quietly. "Alone."

He tilts his head to eye her up. "Your hometown?"

She nods.

He's silent for a few moments before he grabs his radio. "You'll take some men with you. You're not going there alone."

Lydia doesn't get a say as Mackenzie radios the helicopter above them to arrange for somewhere to stop.

When Lydia's about to get out the truck and transfer to the helicopter, Mackenzie places a hand on her healing shoulder. "Please don't get your hopes up. Expect the worst."

Lydia knows. She's told herself a thousand times.

When she's in the helicopter and they're back in the air, her eyes wander the ground below. Deserted.

It takes a few hours to get there, and when they land they would have brought enough attention to themselves so they have to make it quick.

Lydia tells them to land the helicopter on the school lacrosse field. When she steps out she's hit with so much nostalgia she nearly passes out. If she stares long enough, she sees her friends in the bleachers, on the field, walking into the school. She hears the sound of yells and laughing and a whistle blowing and coach Finstock screaming at a student in the distance.

It hurts so much more than she imagined.

The school is empty. They probably realized there were more supernatural goings-on in the building than across the whole world.

But as they head further into the centre of the town, Lydia comes to the realization that there's _no one here_. The power's out everywhere.

They walk past the empty mall, past the empty cinema, the empty shops, the empty houses. Empty.

As they start to progress into the suburb area, it's more apparent that the town has been attacked. Bullet marks, burnt out cars, smashed windows.

Then they walk past a decaying body. And then another. Lydia's feels her lungs tightening.

They make it to Scott's house, and it takes a couple of seconds of staring for Lydia to realise that the house isn't actually there.

Gone. Completely demolished. No car in the driveway, no Melissa smiling through the window.

She stands outside and cries.

Her house is next, but it's barely been touched. A few windows smashed that Lydia uses to get inside. Her mother's half empty glass of wine sits on the kitchen side. Her pair of heels sit by the door. She can still smell the candles her mother must have lit.

She goes into her mother's bedroom just to check. Her drawers and closet are empty which means she fled. Hopefully to safety.

Lydia goes to her room next. Exactly the way she left it. Nothing's here really; she took pretty much everything with her to college. Except for one thing.

Sitting on her knees, she looks under her bed and pulls out the Beastiary. It's next to useless now but she wants to take it with her for safe keeping.

They head to Stiles' house and pass Deaton's clinic on the way there. Empty. Torn apart. But he managed to take the majority of his potions with him. She finds a few he left behind and puts them into her backpack with the Beastiary.

They get to the Stilinski household and she goes straight to Stiles' room and climbs into his bed. It smells of him.

She closes her eyes and for one second, one split second, she's sixteen and she's fallen asleep on his bed after hours of research.

She's seventeen and her cheeks are stained with dried tears and Stiles is telling her that she's okay, it was just a dream.

She's eighteen and her limbs are tangled with his, they're holding on to each other for dear life and he's _back_ , he's _home_ and she loves him, too. She never wants to let go.

She pours her heart out and soaks his pillow in tears.

Lydia leads them to the Argent's place. He's left a few weapons in the basement that they take and she quickly looks in Allison's room. She's happy to find it's been untouched.

Something makes her go to the Argent's bunker. What she finds is that it's blown up. Just a gaping hole left in the ground.

Lydia can't get the image out of her head that the pack went down there to hide and didn't come back out.

\-----------------------

By the time Lydia gets back to Virginia, everyone they saved has been hospitalized and monitored. Lydia heads straight to the medbay for an update but can't find Max. She learns that everyone who was locked up in the institute had been tested with the serum and it was slowly killing them. They weren't just making a serum to turn supernatural to human. They made a serum to kill them.

Luckily, Max and Lydia's serum is reversing the effects slowly and everyone should recover in a week or two.

Lydia hunts around for Max; checks his bunk, his lab, but he's nowhere. Until Mackenzie stops her in the hall.

"Have you seen Max?" Lydia asks.

"Martin, I think there's someone you want to see." Mackenzie replies, leading her down the hall. He stomach drops.

"Who is it?" Lydia asks, rushing after him but he doesn't need to answer that question because as they turn the corner she hears the person speak.

"I swear to god, if someone doesn't take me to my daughter _right now_ -"

Lydia stops in her tracks, her breathing hitched. She feels like she's been winded.

Max walks out of a room looking flustered and out follows...Lydia's mother. Her _mother_ looking equally as flustered.

"Mom..."

Natalie turns, looking dishevelled, skinny, tired, fed up. Older. Sadder. But then she sees Lydia.

"Oh my god." She gasps, bringing a shaky hand to her mouth.

Lydia shakes her head in disbelief. She's looking at her _mother_.

" _Mom_." She feels the tears spring to her eyes and she sprints forward, throwing herself at her.

"Lydia! Oh, _Lydia_. Oh my god." Her mother cries, wrapping her daughter in her arms. "I've been looking for you for so long."

"I thought you were dead." Lydia sobs into the crook of Natalie's neck. She feels like a child again, burying herself in her mother's embrace. It feels so good. She didn't realise how alone she felt until now.

"I thought _you_ were dead until I heard the rumours." Natalie sniffed, pushing Lydia's hair back.

"W-" Lydia frowns, her eyes red. "How'd you find this place?"

Natalie wipes under her eyes. "I hitchhiked with a couple of werewolves. They said they knew where the movement was."

Lydia's mind spins. "You need to tell me what happened. All of it, from the start. Why'd you leave Beacon Hills? Why is it deserted?"

Natalie stiffens. "You went back?"

"In hopes to find you... _someone_." Lydia shrugs, her body shaking.

Natalie shakes her head, tears filling her eyes. "No one's there. Everyone left."

"What happened, mom?" Lydia's nervous.

"Oh god...it was _awful_." Natalie starts to cry again and looks down at the ground. "I wish I could have done something to help but I...I was so helpless."

Lydia grips onto her mother's shoulders. "Mom, what happened?"

Natalie brings a hand to her mouth as more tears spill. "They-they started tearing the place down. Looking for supernatural people to take them away. Argent hid everyone in his bunker while Stiles and Scott started to get people out of town..."

Lydia's heart thumps as a fresh wave of tears spring to her mother's eyes. She doesn't want to ask.

"When it came to getting Scott out it just turned into _hell_. They attacked the bunker, they arrested me, they...they..."

" _Mom._ " Lydia can feel her throat closing up.

Natalie looks at her daughter, and Lydia knows she's sceptical. Which means this will break her. She doesn't want to know, but she needs to know. She's going to throw up.

"Lydia, they murdered Melissa. Th-the Sheriff. Argent. All three of them right in front of us."

Lydia steps back. Brings her hands to her mouth. Her vision starts to black out.

"No. _No,_ mom."

Oh god. Oh god, oh god, oh god.

"Mom, please tell me that's not true." Lydia whispers, her throat tight.

Natalie's body shudders with each sob. "I tried so hard to stop it but they had me in handcuffs. I could only watch."

"No." Lydia shakes her head as her body starts to shut down. "No, no, no. No."

"I'm so sorry, Lydia. I'm so sorry."

Melissa and Noah are dead. Argent, dead. _They're dead._

White noise. Red vision.

She snaps.

Her fist has made contact with the wall but she can't feel it. All she can feel are their lives slipping through her fingers.

Her mother's crying, yelling at her but she can't hear it. All she hears are Scott and Stiles, their voices sore as they scream out for their parents.

All she can picture is Allison rolling in her grave.

Lydia clamps a hand over her mouth and screams. She cries, she sobs, she wants to slam her head on the floor so she can wake up and it would all be a nightmare.

But it's real, it's so _real_. Her legs give way and her sobs fill the hallway and Max has dropped in front of her and Mackenzie's standing there helpless and Lydia slams her palm into the ground repeatedly and wants it to _stop_.

She sees their empty eyes, their bodies lying on the ground. The parents, _their_ parents that did not stop fighting for their kids until their last breath.

Blood. Blood everywhere. Allison screaming. Scott and Stiles. _Scott and Stiles_.

Lydia screams into the floor. Gasps for air. Her mother kneels by her side at some point and cries with her.

She wants to wake up. She wants it all to end.

Melissa. Noah. Argent. Melissa. Noah. Argent.

Dead. And they're never coming back.

Ever.


	5. The tightrope that I'm walking just sways and ties

**YEAR: 2014**

Lydia wakes with a gasp.

The dream isn't as vivid as it used to be. She used to wake up screaming, crying after dreaming of Melissa being shot in the head or Allison crawling out from the ground to cry over her father's body but now...

Now it's just Noah, smiling down at her, asking if she'd like a key cut for his house so she doesn't have to stand outside and wait for Stiles to let her in.

And then she wakes up.

It's been the same dream for the past week, she dreams of nothing else.

It scared her, to start with, but now she's rewarded with a sense of peace when she sees Noah smile. She sees Stiles in him.

Lydia showers and changes into her training gear, leaves her room and walks down the hall to knock on her mother's door. Natalie greets her with a smile and when they both begin walking to the training room, Lydia's hit with a sense of loss at the fact that her mother has been here for _three months_ already.

The world feels as if it is at a standstill, but time is slipping through her fingers.

Her mother has gotten good. _Really_ good. Lydia watches Mackenzie dodge Natalie's kick but fails to avoid it when it comes swinging back around. As he falls to the floor, Lydia's lips quirk.

Her mother has got _great_ balance.

"Can you please agree with me _now_ that taking ballet lessons at a young age pays off?" Natalie turns to Lydia, her forehead shiny and her chest heaving.

"Fine. This one time." Lydia stands up, her own body still sweating from the workout. 

"Girls, this is a huge improvement from three months ago." Mackenzie exhales as he catches his breath. He turns to Lydia. "How are you finding firearms training? Do you feel ready for the mission tomorrow?"

"I'm ready." Lydia nods. "My shoulder has healed, my posture is much better - and practising with my powers has paid off."

"You should have seen the state of the target room." Mackenzie turns to Natalie with a grin. "The scream that came out of her mouth -"

"I know," Natalie nods with a smirk. "Max has already told me. In fact, _everyone_ has already told me."

"She's strong, this one."

Natalie looks over at Lydia, bringing her fingers out to brush her sweaty curls from her face. "Oh, I know."

"I feel like I'm reliving a parent-teacher conference." Lydia rolls her eyes before picking up her towel and heading for the door. "Speaking of Max -"

"Where do you think?" Mackenzie eyes her.

She sighs. "He _still_ hasn't left that room? God, has he even showered in the last five days?"

She heads to the med bay, squirting sanitizer on her hands before entering. Smiling at her colleagues and calling out the occasional 'good morning', she walks through to the communications room.

"Good morning, Max. Please go shower."

He turns to her, his eyes wide and his fingertips black. "I think I just electrocuted myself."

Lydia lets her head fall back as a groan leaves her lips. "Jesus, Max - leave! Leave this god damn room alone for the day. If you're that worried about missing something, I'll man the radio today."

"No, Lydia - don't interrupt me, woman, I swear to god -"

Her mouth clamps shut with a finger in the air.

"- I _heard_ something."

"You _heard_ something?" Lydia looks at the radio. "Like what?"

Lydia hasn't had much faith in the radio Max has been creating for the past few months. He managed to set it up with its own frequency (even had the audacity to name it 'Full Moon FM') and has been sending out calls everyday for the last two months. No answer.

"Well, it's strange...take a listen." Max turns the dial up and moves to a certain frequency before ushering Lydia to bring her ear to the speaker.

She waits for a few seconds until the frequency is clear, and then she hears it.

"I mean it's only tapping, I know, but that's the first thing I've ever heard on here since sending out the -"

Lydia's ears prick and she stares at the speaker. "Wait - Max, that's morse code."

"What?"

"That tapping, those noises...that's morse code!" Lydia stands up, looking around on the work spaces.

"How the hell do you know - I don't actually know why I was about to ask that. Of course you do."

"I need a pen and paper. Quick." Lydia rushes.

Max opens a drawer quickly and pulls out what she needs before slamming it down on the work space in front of her.

They both lean in and listen.

Lydia closes her eyes and listens carefully. She slides the pen and paper towards Max before speaking what she hears.

"H...A..."

Max scribbling on the paper cuts through the soft zapping so easily that she misses a letter.

"E...N..."

Max stares at the paper, squinting. "Haen?"

"Wait, it's starting again. N..."

The sounds stops. They hold their breath. It continues.

"E..."

Max stops scribbling.

"W..." Lydia looks at Max's frozen hand. She looks up at his face and it's a look of pure shock and horror and hope all wrapped into one. "Max?"

"Oh my god." He whispers. "Is it spelling out New Haven?"

Lydia listens again and after thirty seconds, she nods her head in confirmation.

"I'm gonna throw up."

Lydia stands up straight and watches Max back away, his face pale and clammy.

She's confused to say the least. "What?"

He doesn't answer.

"Max, what's in New Ha -"

Then she remembers.

_"I get it. Left my fiance in New Haven. Distance is difficult."_

"Oh my god, _Max_." Lydia blinks.

"Don't." He points at her, his eyes wide and she sees that the hope is about to burst through his brain. "Don't."

"Max -"

"Is that what it says? Is that definitely what it says? Are you sure you know morse code?"

"Max, I'm can confirm thirty times over that is what it says." Lydia gives him her most sure expression.

"Oh my god. Oh my god. What if she's - I mean, what if it's her?"

"Okay, stop." Lydia steps forward and stands in front of him. She places her hands on either side of his face. "Breathe. Eat. Shower. Leave this with me. I'm going to send a message back while you're gone. Please do what I say. Promise me?"

Max exhales, trying so hard to control his breathing before he looks her in the eye. "Okay. Okay. Alright."

Lydia nods. "Alright."

When Max goes, she sends out a message to the frequency asking for coordinates. She keeps her word, monitering it constantly until...until she gets a message back.

She writes it down on the same piece of paper, leaves the communications room, knocks on Max's door and heads to Mackenzie's office with Max on her tail.

She places the paper on Mackenzie's desk. He looks up from his moniter.

"Change of plans tomorrow."

Mackenzie reads the paper, frowns then looks at Max. "Is this from the radio?"

Max nods too quickly, his hair still damp from his shower.

"Good work, kid. What's the plan, then?" Mackenzie looks to Lydia.

"Split tomorrow's team; one team continuing with the mission to Colorado, the other team following us to New Haven."

Mackenzie nods. "Are we sure New Haven is safe?"

Lydia raises an eyebrow. "Are we sure Colorado is safe?"

"Point taken." Mackenzie stands. "I'll go fill the guys in. We need to take more transport if we're doing two trips with potentional pick ups. Would Natalie like to run Colorado?"

"No, but thank you." Lydia replies. "I'd rather her first operation be with me."

Mackenzie nods. "Best get some rest then. We'll be leaving before sunrise."

****

\-----------------------

It's hot outside. Really hot. Lydia can feel her face burning as the sun streams through the windows of the rover.

When they're roughly ten miles from New York, she's ready for a fight. She knows it will be flooding with authorities so she's already warned her team in her rover and the two behind to remain prepared and alert.

When they get to the George Washington bridge and find a barrier set up with tolls inbetween and signs reading **'INSPECTION BEFORE CROSSING'** , Lydia waits for the defence. 

But it doesn't come.

She feels Max looking at her and her mother peering out the window as best as she can.

Lydia grabs her radio and holds down the side button. "Mackenzie, are you seeing this?"

_"How deserted it is? Yes I am."_

She continues to inspect their surroundings.

"Lydia," Natalie begins. "I don't think anyone's here."

Lydia's staring at a deserted New York. It feels like a weird dream. 

She presses down on the radio again. "Head in."

They drive across the bridge and honestly, it's unsettling and creepy to see not one body, not one vehicle except for their own. No noise, no buzz, no lights. Nothing.

The supposed city that never sleeps is completely dead.

She turns to the driver. "Keep following the coordinates."

When they cross the bridge and pass another barrier, it becomes quite apparent to Lydia how severe this all really is. This isn't just a couple of groups in hiding, trying to take down the goverment. This isn't a few cities at war with each other.

This is the whole goddamn world.

She lifts the radio to her lips. "Mackenzie, we'll take a detour through the city."

" _Any particular reason?_ " 

"I just want to see."

They drive through to East Tremont in Bronx and there is still no sign of anyone living here. If they are, they're indoors nowere to be seen.

When they get to Pelham Bay, they begin driving along the coast and there's something about seeing the empty docks and quiet sidewalks on a hot summer's day that she finds so disturbing. All there is are abandoned boats and closed up stalls and parked cars that are covered with dust from the heat and dirt.

If no one's here, then where the hell are they? Where is everyone?

It takes roughly an hour to get to New Haven (no traffic on the roads whatsoever goes in their favour) and Lydia sees that Max is beginning to figdet.

They get to the coordinates, park up and get out. Lydia covers the sun from her eyes and takes in her surroundings.

It is - or was - a public housing estate, from what she can see. It seems abandoned; a couple of bikes lay on the ground and a flock of pigeons have taken shelter in the building to her right.

She looks to her mother, then to Mackenzie. He gives her one look before silently instructing the team to cover the area.

When she feels Max stand next to her, she looks up at him. "Max."

His eyes are wide and his lips are pulled in when he looks down at her.

"Please...just please don't get your hopes up. Alright?"

Something flickers in his eyes and Lydia knows it's easier said than done, but he nods.

They all begin to quietly move in and Lydia's starting to wonder whether it's all a fluke or if they even gave her the correct coordinates but then a voice bellows out from a flat above.

"Don't move!"

Mackenzie brings his hand behind him to tell the team to stop. They all look up with their guns ready.

"Lower your weapons and state your business." The voice calls out.

Mackenzie turns to Lydia, she nods at him. "Lower your weapons, guys."

She brings her gun to the ground and stands up straight with her hands up. Her team follows. She squints up to where the voice is coming from.

"My name is Lydia Martin. We contacted you yesterday from our base in Virginia."

A few seconds pass with no answer, until Lydia sees a head slowly pop up from the balcony she's looking at. "Ms Martin, have you bought medical supplies?"

She frowns at the wary man. "Yes, we have. Why is that?"

The man stands straighter before holding his hand out as a signal. One by one, more heads appear from the balconies around them and she watches them all lower her guns.

"Because we're going to need a lot of them."

****

\-----------------------

The man quickly guides them through one of the buildings. The doors to all of the apartments are open, and Lydia can see all of the walls have been knocked down so the building is more open.

She hears sniffles and quiet cries as she passes each door, she sees blood on the floor as she walks and she's definitely noticed more than one body bag squashed alongside the balconies.

"What happened?"

"We were infiltrated." The man replies in front of her, panic in his voice. "They came in and ramsacked the place, taking anyone they could and killing anyone who faught back. We have a lot of injured and our body count is up to sixty."

Lydia grimaces. "Who? Who came here?"

"Leanne will explain everthing."

"Who's Leanne?" Mackenzie asks.

"She's the person that set this whole place up. I'm taking her to you now." The man confirms.

They get to the end of the balcony and up a flight of stairs before the man leads them into a room that hasn't had the walls knocked down. It consists of a desk, a chair, a radio and old tv moniter.

A lady - in her fifties, maybe - is sitting at the desk, her face sad and fed up. She looks up and smiles at the man that lead them here. "Thank you, Simon."

Lydia stands behind Simon, her gun in her holster and so many questions in her mind.

"Thank you so much for coming." The lady stands. "I still can't believe someone answered our transmission. We've heard nothing on there for months."

"We've not long set our frenquency up, it's been a little crazy to say the least." Lydia replies.

"I'm Leanne, by the way. I'm the one who sent the coordinates."

"Leanne, what happened here? How long have you been here?" Lydia asks.

Leanne laughs, moving around the desk. "Would you believe me if I said I'm just a landlord?"

Lydia tilts her head slightly.

"I bought this complex last year. My plan was to renovate and open it for the homeless - then all hell broke loose, the goverment lost their minds and I found myself housing the supernatural instead."

Lydia blinks.

"The people that attacked us last week...they call themselves the Black Nation. I'm sure it's the goverment." Leanne explains.

"The Black Nation?" Lydia frowns.

Leanne nods. "I've tried my best to follow the media on this until all the news channels shut down a couple of weeks ago. People were realizing how severe all this actually was and all heads were turning to the government so I believe they went rogue and vanished to god knows where. Now they're calling themselves the Black Nation."

Lydia takes her helmet off and pushes her hair back. "This is surreal -"

"Wait, I know you." Leanne frowns, stepping closer.

Lydia halts and stares at the lady.

"You were on TV...with the president." The lady squints, then her eyes move to Max. "And you! How are you both here?"

Max stares at Lydia. Her frown deepens. "What do you mean?"

"You were both assasinated along with the president." Leanne shakes her head in confusion.

"Sorry, _what?_ " Max's eyebrows shoot up.

"In Virginia...it was all over the news."

Lydia's blood begins to boil. "They didn't kill us. They shot the president clean in the chest with wolsbane and killed him, but they most certainly did _not_ kill us."

"Your name's Lydia, right? Lydia Martin, the infamous banshee?" Leanne asks.

Lydia huffs. She can't believe the government faked their deaths. "I wouldn't say infamous, but -"

"Lydia, there's someone here who's been looking for you. He knows you." Leanne interrupts her.

Lydia's whole body freezes. "What?"

"He came here last month." Leanne confirms. "He hasn't stopped talking about you, and the McCall pack -"

_Oh god._

Her heart's stopped.

"Where is he?"

"I'll take you to him. We desperately need medical attention in most buildings, though -"

"Mackenzie."

He nods at Lydia. "On it."

"Take me to him. Now." Lydia desperately turns to Leanne.

With one nod, she leads Lydia out the door and down the flight of stairs. They walk across the grounds to another building and Lydia can't feel her face, her legs, her skin.

She feels like she's going to throw up.

When they get to the next building, Leanne walks in front of Lydia down the hall and knocks on the third door and Lydia's definitely going to throw up.

The door opens and she's so ready to run and scream and throw her arms around him, but -

But.

It's not him.

"Lydia?!"

It's not him.

"Look who I found, Theo." Leanne smiles. "It really is a small world after all."

_It's not him._

"Lydia, what - oh my god. You're alive." Theo stares at her in disbelief.

It's a horrible feeling to have your world come crushing down for the upteenth time. It hurts just as much as the last.

She walks away from them with a tear falling down her face.

****

\-----------------------

She spends the next three hours patching people up and ignoring her mother's pity eyes.

Lydia's angry, _so_ angry at herself for getting her hopes up for them to just be shattered on the floor. She feels deflated and defeated.

When she goes outside to get some air, she sits and leans against a wall and watches her team tend to the injured. She stares at the dead bodies they've dragged out.

Max sits down next to her. He's holding a box.

Lydia stares at the box before looking up at him. He looks just as crushed as she feels.

"They took her."

Something inside Lydia's heart snaps.

"They came in, and - they just _took_ her."

Lydia closes her eyes. "Max, I'm so sorry."

He snifs, kicks a stone on the ground and turns to her with tears in his eyes. "It's hard not to get your hopes up, isn't it?"

She pulls in her lips and starts picking on some dead skin around her nail. "Yeah."

Max opens the box. "This is all her belongings. Her engagement ring is in here. She took it off."

Lydia stays quiet.

"She thought I was dead and she took it off. Now she's somewhere, alone, terrified, hurt...possibly not even _alive_." He lets more tears fall down.

She doesn't say anything. She just takes his hand and places it in her lap and they stare at the aftermath of a massacre.

"What the fuck has happened?" Max whispers.

Lydia shakes her head. "I don't know."

A few hours later and the sun starts to set and her team start to pack everything up.

She finds Leanne and Simon in discussion with Mackenzie by the rovers.

"Leanne, I really wish I could take you all with us -" She begins.

"Lydia, you've all done more than enough here. You can't be expected to take care of everyone." Leanne smiles sincerely. "We'll build back up. Maybe take a leaf out of your book and live underground."

Lydia smiles. "I'll contact the other bases we know of, see if they can house the rest of you."

"The main thing is that the severely injured will be under your care. I can't thank you enough."

"It's the least we can do." Mackenzie nods.

Lydia's eyes land on her mother walking towards them. Then she sees _him_.

She moves away from Leanne and Mackenzie and picks up her pace. "He's not coming with us."

Theo freezes.

Natalie glares at her daughter. " _Lydia -_ "

"No. He stays here." Lydia snaps.

Natalie's about to say something, but then she retracts and turns to Theo. "Theo, get in the rover."

Lydia's steps forward, her anger simmering. "He _stays here -_ "

"He is coming with us!" Natalie yells, silencing everyone. "This is not the time for revelling in your past, Lydia. The boy comes with us."

Lydia's nostrils flare as she glares at her mother. She locks eye contact with Theo and she's never felt anger like this.

In silence, she gets into the passenger seat of the rover and slams the door as loud as she can.

****

\-----------------------

She purposely makes herself sleep through the entire journey. The thought of staying awake while Theo sits just behind her was enough to make the driver stop the car so she could strangle him on the side of the road.

When they make it back to the base and park up, she gets straight out of the rover and into the warehouse and down the stairs, knocking on the metal door a little too loudly.

She wants to go straight to her room and lock the door but her mother is right on her tail, followed by the others.

"Lydia."

She ignores her, carries on walking.

" _Lydia Grace Martin!_ "

She stops walking.

"Stop with the childish tantrum and talk to the boy. Act like a goddamn adult."

Lydia turns on her feet and stares at her mother. She sees Theo, Max and Mackenzie just behind her and her eyes see red.

"Really, mother? You want me to talk to him? You want me to have a conversation with the person who is responsible for the hole in my head?"

Natalie's eyes flicker and Lydia's knows her brain is filled with flashbacks. "What?"

Lydia steps forward. " _He's_ the reason I was admitted into Eichen. _He's_ the reason I was tested on like a fucking lab rat. _He is_ the reason I died on that table and nearly killed everyone within a five mile _fucking_ radius."

Theo is the next to speak. She really wishes he didn't.

"I went to hell for that. _Literally_. You all sent me down to _hell_ -"

"You better count your lucky stars Liam bought you back up, because if it weren't for the fact we needed your help you'd still be there now." Lydia seethed.

"I'm glad you mentioned that, actually, because it seems that you're forgetting I _helped_ you." Theo steps past Natalie. "I helped save Liam from the Ghost Riders, I helped you go against the hunters! I helped every single _one_ of you! You, Scott, Malia, _Stiles_ -"

Something snaps inside and next thing Lydia knows, she's slamming Theo up against the wall with her hand around his neck.

"Stiles' father nearly _died_ because of you!"

"Lydia!" Natalie cries out. Mackenzie pulls her off of Theo and holds her back.

"Get the hell off of me." She growls, pushing away from her colleague.

"You need to calm down." Mackenzie warns her.

Her chest heaves as she watches Theo hold his throat.

"I guess you got what you wanted in the end, huh?"

Her looks up at her. "What do you mean?"

"The sheriff is dead. Along with Melissa and Argent." Lydia bites.

Theo's expression drops.

"They're dead, Theo. And as time goes on I'm starting to get hit with the fucking awful realization that the others are dead, too." Lydia breathes, stepping forward to meet his eyes. "And I am _wracking_ my brain as to why they died but the universe decided to keep _you_ alive instead."

She walks away, goes to her room, locks the door and cries herself to sleep.

****

\-----------------------

The following morning, she hears her mother trying to pick the lock on her door. She sighs, pulls herself from her bed and unlocks it. She can let herself in.

She feels Natalie's eyes on her as soon as she's closed the door behind her. She gets back into bed.

"Lydia." Natalie sits on the bed. "I'm sorry. I -"

"You didn't know." Lydia mumbles. "How were you supposed to know? I never told you."

"Look at me." Her mother whispers.

Lydia turns to peak at her.

"That boy has done some awful things." Natalie sighs. "I should know - I just spent the whole night listening to him after I demanded to know everything."

"So you know he killed his own sister."

"And took her heart, yes." Her mother grimaces. "I rather I didn't know about that last part."

Lydia sits up and brings the cover over her knees.

Natalie stares deeply into her eyes. "I will never _ever_ get the image of you being in Eichen out of my head. I will never forget how _scared_ I was. It didn't need to happen. It shouldn't have happened, none of it. And you can blame Theo, rightfully so."

Lydia looks up at her.

"But you can also blame me." Natalie tilts her head. "I put you in that place. I never listened to Stiles, or the Sheriff. They tried to warn me and I didn't listen."

"Mom, you didn't -"

"I didn't know because you didn't tell me." Natalie smiles. "We've all done things we regret. In Theo's case, he's done a _lot_ of things. And I'm not sure if it's the mother in me saying this, but, I think he deserves _something_. Not another chance, not your friendship. But he deserves to live. He deserves to fight with us."

Lydia takes the hand her mother's offering and squeezes it.

"He's a small taste of Beacon Hills. I think you need it." Natalie whispers.

Lydia sighs and thinks for a second. She thinks hard.

"Mom."

Natalie looks up.

"Can you cut my hair off, please?"

"What?" Natalie blinks.

"It's annoying me, I want it gone." Lydia replies.

"Well, _not_ the reaction I was expecting, but...of course." She gets up from the bed. "Come on."

Lydia sits on the toilet seat and lets her mother cut her hair to above her shoulders. She watches her long, strawberry-blonde hair fall to the ground around her. She sees hairstyles after hairstyles, the hours she spent on perfecting it and now it's not there.

When she stands and admires it in the mirror with her mother smiling behind her, she sighs.

She feels better.


	6. The devil as he's talking with those angel's eyes

**YEAR: 2014**

Lydia walks into the training room and the first person she sees is Max.

He walks up to her, flicks a lock of her hair and grins. "New hair, new me?"

"Shut up, Max." She smirks, knocking him out of the way.

Mackenzie greets her, and standing next to him is Theo.

Wonderful.

"I thought we'd start this session by getting out some pent up anger."

Lydia glares at Theo. "Good idea. He's had no training, though."

"My thoughts exactly." Mackenzie looks at Theo. "Nevermind."

Lydia's eyes flicker back up to Theo and he shrugs with a smirk. "Show me what you've got, Martin."

She doesn't waste any time. She flies at him with a kick to his jaw. He falls to the ground.

"Nice." Mackenzie calls out with folded arms. "Feel any better?"

"Not yet." Lydia replies as Theo begins to get up. She wraps her thighs around his neck and flips, bringing him back down again.

Theo, typical as ever, smiles through the pain. "Does it feel good to be in control?"

"That, I'm not so sure of. Having the person that left me camotose in a choke hold, however -"

She doesn't expect him to grab her legs and spin then both round, but then he's on top of her.

"Never let your guard down, Lydia. Remember what I told you." Mackenzie calls out.

"Can you ever see yourself forgiving me?" Theo asks her.

"I'll forgive you when you're in hell."

"Well I've been there, done that, even got the tshirt -"

She strikes him in the face with her forehead and he stumbles back. "I was hoping you would stay there for good."

Theo holds the bridge of his nose as blood begins to pour out. "Funny how the universe works, huh, Lydia?"

"You're not wrong." She grabs his free hand and twists, satisfied with hearing a bone snap.

When Theo yelps out, she lets go.

"Jesus fucking -"

"You'll heal." Mackenzie calls out. "Get up."

Lydia doesn't let him get up. She moves back towards him with her fist ready but he slides through her legs and kicks her in the back of the knee. As she falls down, he grabs her arms and pulls her to his front so she's stuck. "Can we at least wait until my arm is healed?"

"I'd rather not." Lydia strains before tugging Theo over her back and he slams into the ground.

She hears Max whistle.

"Nice, Lydia!" Mackenzie cheers. "I've never seen that one."

"It's funny what your enemies help you achieve." She smirks down at Theo with her hands on her hips.

"Glad I could help." He pants.

Lydia regains her breath, steps forward to slam her foot down on his chest but he moves to the side and jumps up. When she turns, she's too slow to dodge the punch he swings with his good arm.

She feels the blow straight under her eye and she staggers back a little.

"Alright, fun's over." Mackenzie calls out.

"No it isn't." Lydia hisses, wiping the blood from her cheek bone.

"He's a chimera, Lydia." Mackenzie warns. "Let's call it a day."

Theo turns to him. "You really think I'm gonna hurt her _that_ bad?"

Lydia uses his withdrawn attention to her benefit and she steps back. When Theo turns back around, she's already prepared a scream and she directs it right at his chest and lets it rip.

He flies backwards, falling straight into the weight racks.

As she brings her arms down, she hears her own breath and the sound of weights dropping to the floor.

Max and Mackenzie slowly bring their hands away from their ears.

When Theo eventually gets himself up, he's transformed himself.

Lydia smiles.

"Enough!" Mackenzie yells, staring at Theo's teeth. "We didn't come here for this!"

Lydia and Theo completely ignore him.

She watches the chimera kick a set of weights out of the way before throwing his hands out, revealing his claws.

"You angry now, Theo?" Lydia smirks.

"Very much so." Theo growls.

When his eyes glow, Lydia taunts him with a hand guesture that tells him to bring it on.

He roars. And then he charges.

As he's about to reach her she takes a leaf out of his book and slides through his legs, jumping up and throwing another scream at him.

He nearly dodges it but it hits half his body and he stumbles back. Shaking his head to stop the ringing in his ears, he runs and jumps at Lydia as she charges at the wall, leaps off of it and flips over him.

She sends another scream his way and he falls into the wall with a crack. She holds the scream and watches the wall crack more and more before hearing Mackenzie yell at her to stop.

Theo musters up some more strength, because he's somehow pushing through the scream towards Lydia and then she's on the ground and he's growling at her with his teeth bared.

He isn't winning. Not a chance.

She pushes her elbows into the floor, lifts her hands up towards his chest and screams as loud as she can.

She's a little shocked to see him fly into the ceiling. Jesus, she's never done that before.

When a light crashes to the floor from the ceiling along with Theo and Mackenzie's pushing Max out of the way, she thinks that maybe she's going too far but she doesn't care.

She pins Theo down and aims a hand at his face and she thinks that maybe she could kill him right now. Crush his skull, or maybe his rib cage.

Then he changes back to human and he's got fear in his eyes and Mackenzie screams at her and she's sure, she's _so sure_ that it was Scott screaming at her to stop.

Then it's silent, just her and Theo's breathing and her raised hand. She lowers it slowly.

"I'm _sorry._ " Theo gasps. "I'm _sorry_ , okay? For everything I done to you, and your pack. I wish I could take it all back."

Lydia takes deep breaths before collapsing off of him. She looks up at the damage on the ceiling. "You know what, Theo? I wish you could take it all back, too."

He stares at her for a long time before Max pulls her up and Mackenzie picks Theo up from the ground.

"Both of you go get cleaned up." He instructs angrily before staring at Theo. "And heal."

Lydia slowly regains her breath and looks at Mackenzie. "I'll fix this all, I promise."

"Just go." He sighs.

Lydia lets her eyes cast to the floor before she and Theo walk/limp out.

They shuffle through the hallway in silence, side by side until Natalie appears around the corner. Her eyes widen at the state of Theo and then she gasps when she sees Lydia's eye.

"Oh my god! What happened?!"

Lydia looks at Theo and then down at her bloody top. She's honestly not sure who the blood belongs to. "I -"

"Combat training. We had a bit of an accident but we're good." Theo replies.

"Are you sure? You both look pretty bad." Natalie frowns, studying Lydia's eye.

Theo looks to Lydia then back to her mother. He waves her off. "I'll heal."

Lydia sighs as he disappears down the hall, his broken arm hanging loosely by his side.

She may have taken it too far.

****

\-----------------------

"Max, please."

"I have no upper arm strength." He retorts. "Why are you asking me?"

"Because if we put _your_ lack of upper arm strength and _my_ lack of upper arm strength together, we might be able to lift this fucking thing." She huffs with both hands on one end of the weight. "Now help."

"I best get a thank you for helping you clear up your own mess." He sighs, bending down to hold the other end. "That was brutal."

"3, 2, 1..." They lift the weight, both in obvious pain as they place it into the hooks. "I know it was brutal. I was there."

Max stands up straight to stretch his back. "Don't get me wrong, it was so badass. But brutal. You literally flung him into the ceiling."

"I _know_ , Max, I was there. Lift."

A lot of strain and a lot of bubblering on Max's end, they get the final weight back in its place.

"Great." Max heaves. "Now you've just gotta fix the light."

Lydia rolls her eyes at him. "You think I know how to rewire a ceiling light?"

"Well, you should have thought about that before launching a werewolf into the ceiling." He taps her on the nose while passing.

"He's actually a chimera." Lydia bickers.

"And I don't care!" Max cheers. They both walk together towards the cafeteria. "Get Kenny from engineering, he'll fix it. He'll literally do anything for you."

"I know you're right and that creeps me out even more." Lydia scrunches up her nose.

They line up for food and peer around the building room. Everyone's finishing up work for lunch.

"He could be of use, you know." Max snaps her from her people watching.

"What?"

"Theo." Max raises his eyebrows. "Have you actually asked him how he ended up in New Haven?"

Lydia ignores him and steps forward in the queue.

"He could have information. You said he's from Beacon Hills, right? What if he was with your pack?"

"He wasn't. My mom would have mentioned him being there." Lydia replies.

"It doesn't hurt to ask him what happened, Lydia." Max sighs as he helps himself to a tray of food.

Lydia does the same and thanks the staff before her and Max take a seat.

"Speaking of the devil." Max mutters.

She lifts her head and looks to where Max is gazing.

"God, you gotta feel sorry for him a little bit. He's eating on his own." Max sighs.

Lydia watches Theo push the food around on his plate. She feels a pang of guilt but also wants to call him an ungrateful little shit.

She turns back to Max. "Would it make you feel better if we go and sit with him?"

"Mildly." Max grins.

"Fine." Lydia hisses, picking up her tray before leading her and Max to Theo's table.

They both sit down and he looks up, frowning at Lydia.

"Are you going to eat that?" Lydia tilts her head. "Because there's a lot of people here that would very much appreciate the food on your plate."

He bows his head apologetically and begins eating. Max glares at her. She glares back. Then gives in.

"Theo..." She sighs. "Did you - how did you end up at New Haven?"

His eyes light up at the question. "Caught a ride with some others. I was walking around San Fransisco for god knows how long."

"What made you go to San Fransisco?" Lydia frowns.

"I fled from Beacon Hills before it turned to shit. Got a bus out of town and never looked back." He smiles sarcastically.

"Did you see anyone before you left?" Lydia keeps her voice stable to prevent showing any desperation.

"I saw Scott briefly before I left..." He thinks. "And Liam called me when I was passing through Sacramento. He was telling me to come to some hideout."

Lydia remembers her mother telling her about the base Derek had set up. She helped drive the supernatural out of town to it. "Why didn't you go?"

Theo looks at her. "I'd had enough, Lydia. I just wanted a fresh start. Didn't realize how crazy it was going to get but I wanted out."

Lydia nods before picking at her food.

"Where was this hide out?" Max asks them both.

"Sacramento." They both reply.

Max frowns. "Well, why haven't we been there?"

Lydia stops eating. Why _haven't_ they? "I guess the thought left my mind, what with my mom coming home."

"Then let's go." Max places his fork down. "Talk to Mackenzie and we'll take a team down there tomorrow."

Lydia nods, her eyes wandering past Max as she thinks it through. He's right. They should've gone earlier. "Alright."

Max looks over at Theo. "Do you want to come?"

Theo blinks before his eyes shoot to Lydia. She glances at Max quickly before sighing. "We could use the man power."

"Or - or the _chimera_ power, in your case." Max adds.

"Stop talking." Lydia mutters.

"Okay."

****

\-----------------------

They head off early in three trucks. Natalie sits in the front to direct the driver while Lydia, Max, Theo and Mackenzie sit in the back.

Sod's law that Theo sits opposite Lydia. And they're not stopping for a rest for another eight hours.

She wants to let it go, she really does. He's helping, not getting into any bother and he doesn't seem to have any hate left for the McCall pack.

But everytime she looks at him, she feels his claws in her neck. She feels the wet grass beneath her when he throws her to the ground. She feels the drill in her head and she hears the scream that tore through her throat and Valack's skull.

An hour in and Lydia's turned in her seat so she can see out the window. She scribbles in a note book everytime they pass a gas station or a hardware store.

They do this on every mission - note down the places they see and on the way back they can ramsack the places for supplies and equipment.

Lydia instructs Theo to do the same on his side.

Max falls asleep on her shoulder by the second hour. He starts dribbling on the third.

She falls asleep herself, eventually. Dreaming of highscool and Allison and life before the pain and suffering. She dreams of her small apartment at MIT. She dreams of when Stiles managed to visit her a couple of times, before their last phone call.

She dreams of the call, what she would have said if she knew it was their last. She dreams that she said she loves him and that she'll miss him and never forget him.

But when she wakes up, she's left with the burden of knowing that her last words to him were _"you're an idiot"_.

It's fitting, really, given their relationship. He really is an idiot but she loves him and she should have told him one more time.

They stop to rest on the eighth hour and Lydia's the first to jump out the back to stretch her legs.

The sun is beginning to go down and they're just outside of St Louis. Only one day and five hours to go.

She takes a brief walk around the parking lot they've stopped in, drinks some water and gets back in the truck. She offers to drive the next five hours while their driver and her mother gets some rest in the back.

Max is too far gone to wake, so Theo offers to sit in front with her. She doesn't say no.

A couple of hours in, everyone's asleep in the back and Theo's kept his mouth shut while watching the trees go by and Lydia's finding it all a little peaceful with the sunset in the distance.

He looks over at her for a few moments and she doesn't look back.

"I know you were expecting someone else in New Haven. I'm sorry it was me."

Lydia's heart drops a little and she feels even more guilt than before. "It's - you shouldn't be sorry. Don't be sorry."

He nods, looks out the window. "I know you're not really interested in what I think, but, I do believe they're still alive."

She turns her head to look at him.

"If Scott's involved, I'm sure they've found a way." Theo continues. "Hell, even Stiles. Kid know's how to survive."

Lydia pulls in her lips and puts her eyes back on the road. "We're not kids anymore."

"I know." Theo replies. "It's crazy to think we thought we weren't kids back then. But we were. Just a bunch of teenagers still in highschool, trying to beat each other up with fangs and poisenous tails."

"Correction: trying to stop _you_ from _killing_ us with fangs and poisenous tails." Lydia side eyes him.

He looks at her and chuckles. "If that's how you remember it."

"Don't be sarcastic." Lydia rolls her eyes.

"My bad. Only Stiles can pull that off, right?"

Lydia's stomach flips. "Right."

"From my observation, you all had a _thing_." Theo leans his head back on the head rest.

She's intrigued. "What do you mean?"

"Well, Stiles' thing was sarcasm, Scott's thing was vomit-inducing kindness, and _your_ thing -"

"Tread carefully." Lydia warns.

"I was actually ready to throw you a compliment, but -"

"Proceed."

Theo laughs quietly. "You? You just oozed _knowledge_. Your thing is definitely being a smart-ass."

Lydia can feel the tension lifting from her body. She smiles. "I thought you were giving me a compliment?"

"That is a compliment." Theo turns to her.

"Now you sound like _Malia's_ thing." Lydia holds in a laugh.

"What, straight-to-the-point blatant?" Theo grins.

"Exactly that." Lydia laughs.

"She never held back, did she." He sighs next to her.

"It was nice." Lydia remembers. "Refreshing."

She could do with that right now. She wants Malia's kindness, and fierceness and vulnerability. She wants her undying friendship.

Lydia feels completely lost all of a sudden.

She doesn't mean to shudder out a watery smile. "I miss them."

Theo nods and looks back out of the window. "I know."

****

\-----------------------

Lydia's head knocks against the side of the truck when it stops, waking her from her restless sleep.

It's the following day and they're finally here.

She isn't excited, not one bit. She doesn't want to know and she doesn't want to see what's inside.

But she follows Mackenzie and her mother into the hideout and it's apparent they won't be finding anyone alive.

They locate some supplies and more ammo, a couple of guns and some food. While some begin to load it into the trucks, Lydia continues on with the rest.

They head into a large lower floor and as soon as Lydia sees the blood on the floor she wants to walk back out.

It's so much worse than her mind envisioned.

Bodies everywhere. Some eyes open, some closed.

What makes it ten times worse is that she recognizes some of the faces. The boy she just passed was definitely in her AP Biology class.

They carry on walking, checking the bodies for pulses but the more they enter the more vulgar the smell is. They've been down here for weeks, at least.

There's a bad feeling in Lydia's stomach when they move to the next room and she knows who she's about to find before even seeing them. She doesn't know how or why. She just does.

Knowing doesn't make it any easier.

"Lydia, don't look -" Her mother hisses.

His eyes are open and he's staring straight at her.

Theo turns to her to try and get her to walk back but she stiffens.

"Derek." She chokes out.

"I'm gonna take her back upstairs -" Theo begins to say to the others but she's moved past him and finds herself collapsing next to Derek's body.

She has no words. What can you say when the people around you keep dying?

She's so lost in his eyes, she nearly misses the body next to him.

Braeden.

When she sees that they're holding hands, she loses it. Cries for the first time since her mother appeared.

Max starts to pick her up after Mackenzie tells him to get her out and she lets him. She doesn't want to look anymore.

"Can - can someone please close his eyes? Just close his eyes." Lydia sniffs, standing up straight. She wipes her face as her mother bends down and does what she asks.

She's done. The reason for even coming here in the first place leaves her mind. It just set her up for more heartbreak.

Max starts walking her out the room and she really doesn't expect the next body she recognizes. She really wasn't prepared for this one.

But Mason's right in her eyesight, propped up against a container and nausea hits her completely.

"Oh _god_ \- no, no, no, no -" Lydia falls in front of the younger boy. He looks somewhat peaceful, could even say he looks as if he's fast asleep but reality kicks her in the gut and reminds her that they're all dead. All of them.

"No, Mason, _no_..." Her face tilts and morphs into a look of pain and a fresh wave of tears roll down her face.

She doesn't know when Theo joins her, but he's there on the floor next to her with a stunned look on his face and his eyes aren't blinking.

"Jesus _fucking_ Christ!" Lydia screams, taking one last look at Mason before launching herself up. She kicks a container across the floor.

Max is about to pull her away but she's already beat him to it - she storms out of the room, her eyes fixed on the exit to avoid seeing anyone else.

She sits outside and waits for them. Her mother comes up shortly after.

Her mother finds Lydia with her head in her hands, unconsciously running one hand through the long hair she no longer has.

Natalie sits down next to her. "There's no one else down there. I recognize a couple from school and in our neighbourhood, but-but not any of your friends."

"Except for Derek and Mason." Lydia whispers, defeated.

"Lydia, do you want us to take them -?"

"No, we leave them here. Don't move them." She pictures Braeden and Derek's intertwined hands. "Leave them where we found them."

"Okay." Natalie nods, placing a hand on her daughter's back. "Okay."

After a few moments, Lydia shudders out a breath and sits up straight. She looks at her mom. "He got out."

Her mother looks at her questionably.

"Derek got _out_. He left. He went off to start a better life with Braeden and they were happy." Lydia mumbles. "Then we sucked him back in to help us and now he's dead."

"You didn't suck him in. He came back to help you all because he _cared_." Natalie sighs. "He set this place up because he wanted you all to be safe."

Lydia closes her eyes.

"Sweetheart," Her mother begins. "Whether he left Beacon Hills or not, trouble would still have followed. This mess isn't just in Beacon Hills, it's everywhere."

Lydia nods. "And that's just the truth of it all, isn't it, mom? It's everywhere. And it won't ever stop."

Natalie tilts her head and cups Lydia's cheek with her hand. "You can't let this stop you from carrying on. You've done so well, Lydia -"

Lydia's not sure if she's hallucinating the bullet that just dodges her mother's head, but then sound catches up with light and she hears the gunshot loud and clear.

She pushes her mother to the ground and drags them behind a low wall, adrenaline flooding through her body. "Are you okay?!"

Her mother nods before pulling the gun from her holster. "Where did it come from?"

Lydia shakes her head before peaking above the wall. Another bullet flies past her and she ducks.

She yanks her radio off her belt. "Mackenzie, do you copy?"

" _I hear it. Where are they?_ "

"Eleven o'clock outside the entrance. I can only spot one gunman -" She brings her head up to peek once more, but then a ricochet of bullets come firing towards her. She ducks down. "Three! Three gunmen!"

" _We're moving up. Stay where you are._ "

"Mom, be careful." Lydia hisses as Natalie shuffles to the end of the wall and peaks around the side. She aims her gun and fires.

Lydia flinches before Natalie turns to her.

"One down."

Lydia's eyebrow raises as she silently praises her mom before she does the same thing and peaks around the other end of the wall. She aims and shoots and takes one out.

Her mother's about to fire again, but the man she's aiming at gets taken out by another gun.

The girls turn and see Mackenzie and Max come out of the entrance of the hideout with their guns aimed, followed by the rest of the team.

Lydia cranes her next and squints at their three trucks. She sees the few men that carried the supplies back crouching behind a truck. She sighs in relief.

"We have more men." Lydia reassures her mother, but then the sound of a chopper comes into their hearing and Lydia wishes she never said a word.

Natalie looks up as the chopper gets lower, throwing the wind in their faces. "We best get out the big guns."

Lydia presses down on her radio. "Mackenzie, get the missile gun ready."

" _We have it_."

"Wait!" Natalie yells. "Wait, I have a clear shot. There's only two up there."

"Mom, if we wait any longer they're gonna shred us to pieces." Lydia argues.

"Yes, but if we launch a missile at them, we won't have a new helicopter to take back with us, will we?" Natalie argues back.

Lydia's eyes light up. That's brilliant. "Mackenzie, hold up on the missile. Don't fire unless I signal you to."

" _Lydia, you both best not be planning anything stupid_."

She ignored him and lifts up her gun.

"You take the pilot and I'll take the sniper, alright?" Natalie calls out.

"Got it." Lydia lifts her arms up and closes one eye, aiming right for the pilot's head.

After a few seconds, they shoot.

They succeed.

The sniper falls from the chopper and it begins to come down lower to the ground. Lydia and Natalie move out from the wall and run towards the rest of them as they watch the helicopter hit the ground.

It falls at an angle were none of the propellers were damaged and there are no explosions, so really it's a win-win -

"Lydia, move!" Theo yells, pushing her out of the way.

She falls to the ground and hits her head before she hears another gunshot.

When she looks up and sees a red stain growing on Theo's shirt, her blood runs cold.

Mackenzie lifts his gun up and shoots at a man crawling across the floor, gun hanging limply in his hand. The bullet that goes in him is enough to keep him dead this time.

Lydia stares at Theo, stunned and confused. She stands up and rushes to him, inspecting the wound.

"It's fine, it's fine. It hasn't hit anything, I'll heal." He strains, his face distorted.

"That's not the point." She snaps, pressing against the wound. He yelps out in pain. "You just jumped in front of a bullet for me."

He coughs, whispers then looks down at her through a pained expression. "Forgive me now?"

"You -" Lydia scowls. "Get him in the truck. Give him space, he needs to heal. Mom, watch over him."

"Lydia, it's alright." Theo sighs.

"No it isn't. You could have died. In the truck, now. The rest of you, head out and make sure the area's clear. Max?"

"Already on it." Max jogs past her towards the chopper. She follows him with her gun ready.

When they reach it, Lydia pulls the pilot's body out and inspects the damage.

"It seems fixable." Max confirms. "They build these things to withstand mostly anything."

Lydia exhales and looks up at him. "Looks like we have ourselves another toy."

****

\-----------------------

After thirty minutes of rewiring and a few sparks flying (and Max yelping), the helicopter is good to go.

When she instructs Mackenzie to fly it - taking Max and her mother with him - he's about to argue back.

"They know we're here." Lydia thins her lips. "The three of you get back to warn the rest in case of an attack. We'll be fine."

He's not happy about the situation, but he nods nevertheless.

When the three of them are in the sky, Lydia orders the rest of her team to take off in the trucks.

She gets in the back of one of the rovers where Theo is lying down on one side. He smirks at her.

She scowls at him and sits on the seat opposite as the engine rolls.

"Oh, come on. How can you be mad at me?" Theo rolls his eyes. He tries to sit up and Lydia places a hand on his shoulder forcefully.

"Try to get up and I'll push that bullet even deeper."

His face is deadpan but he complies and lies flat once more. "Get over it, Lydia. I heal, you don't. It was smart."

She finds herself snapping, leaning forward to glare at him. "It could have been _wolfsbane_."

Theo only stares at her because he can't say anything else. And when she looks down at the blood on his chest all she can remember is black liquid seeping through her fingers and the president's glassy eyes.

She leans back and folds her arms.

"For someone who was pretty adamant on killing me this morning..."

She peeks at him and then sighs. "I wasn't going to kill you."

"But you were definitely thinking about it." He smirks. "Why didn't you?"

She stays silent, looks out the window.

"Because of Scott?"

Her eyes flicker back and her heart swells. "Because I'm not a monster."

Theo laughs and folds his hands over his chest. "Lydia, when we're living a life like this...we're _all_ monsters."

****

\-----------------------

When they get back to the base with both trucks filled with supplies, Lydia's eyes gaze upon the new helicopter sitting comfortably next to the one they got from Idaho.

She knocks on the vault door once climbing down the stairs and the person manning it lets her in with a smile. She smiles back but it soon diminishes when the man has similar eyes to Derek Hale. She carries on walking.

"Lydia." Mackenzie's voice comes from her left. She turns and he seems stressed. "They attacked New Haven again. We've just received a message from Simon. Leanne's dead."

Lydia's skin goes cold. She's had enough of this week.

"I know it's been a long few days...however, I think we need to revisit our hostage -"

"He hasn't spoken one word in the three months he's been here. Why do you expect he'll talk now?"

"Because we're going to use force this time."

She looks Mackenzie deep in the eye. _I'm not a monster._

But then she weighs up her options and realizes they haven't got anything else to go from.

She agrees. They both walk down the hall, past the training room and to the door at the end where their captive has been since bringing him here from their base in Idaho.

The guard lets them in and the first thing Lydia's hit with is the _stench_.

The man sits on the floor opposite them, beard grown and eyes heavier. He doesn't look at them.

"Hello, Jim." Lydia calls out into the very silent room.

He flinches. Lydia can tell he's going insane. No windows, no people, no talking. It's all caught up with him.

She takes a seat on the bed, Mackenzie stays by the door.

"We're going to need you to start talking." She lowers her voice and he looks up at her.

Nothing.

Lydia smells the air again before looking over at the guard. "When was the last time he showered?"

The guard shakes his head.

She locks eyes with Mackenzie and his eyes light up. An idea.

Lydia watches him pick the broken man off of the floor and take him into the next room where the toilet and shower are. She follows quickly.

"You're not in the mood to talk?" Mackenzie asks him, cuffing his hands to the metal loop in the wall before stepping back.

Lydia watches him, confused.

"This dial here," Mackenzie starts, pointing at the handle on the wall. "This sets the temperature of the water."

Lydia stiffens.

"Lucky for us, our supply of water and electricity is pretty high down here, so hot water doesn't ever go amiss." Mackenzie finishes. "You want to see how hot it gets?"

Lydia stares at him before looking at Jim. She sees the fear in his eyes as he leans against the shower wall.

"Let's give it a try." The general turns on the water and twists the handle slightly.

Jim cowers in the water, his clothes sticking to his body and Lydia sees the steam radiate from him.

"Nice and warm isn't it? Why don't we turn it up a notch?"

She doesn't know when she does it but Lydia's wrapped her arms around herself. _I'm not a monster_.

Jim's face begins to turn into discomfort and pain and his skin starts to redden. But Mackenzie doesn't stop there.

"We've got miles left on this, Jim. You want it to stop; you start talking."

Jim's jaw is clenched along with the rest of his body. Lydia can feel the heat of the water against her face. This isn't right.

"Come on, Jim!"

Then he yells in pain. First noise he's made since being here.

The yelling doesn't stop, it only gets louder and Lydia has to turn away so she can't look at his expression.

She can't block out the noise the. The yells turn to screams and she finds herself cowering away but the heat hits her face and she's finding it hard to breathe in here and she's just about to scream at Mackenzie to stop until another voice interrupts her.

"My son!" Jim's cry is barely audible through the water but they both hear it. "They have my son!"

Lydia stills and looks at Mackenzie.

"You need to tell us more than that, Jim. Come on!"

Then he turns the handle as far as it can go and Jim's scream pierce her ears and she'd had enough. She can't.

"Turn it off!"

Mackenzie stares at her.

"Now." She glares, rushing to Jim as the water stops.

He collapses as much as he's able to with his wrists tied up and whimpers.

"Jim?" Lydia feels her throat close up. What the hell did they do? "Jim, they have your son? Where?"

He just sobs.

"Get the handcuffs off of him." Lydia snaps at the guard before turning back. "Jim, we can _help_. We can look for him."

When the cuffs are removed, he slumps to the floor. Lydia gives him a minute to gather his breath. She studies the burns on his skin and orders Mackenzie to fetch medical supplies. She orders the guard to stand outside the door, too. She needs to build some trust.

"Will you let me help you to your bed?" She asks quietly.

He looks up at her and nods. Slowly, she lifts him up against the wall and leads him back to his room, placing him on his bed. She sits against the wall opposite and waits till he looks at her.

"I'm sorry." Lydia whispers. "We shouldn't have done that, it wasn't right."

He looks down at his lap.

"I get why you've stayed silent." She pulls in her lips. "I'm looking for loved ones, too. A lot of us are, actually."

She hopes he speaks but he doesn't. He carries on looking down.

"I know you don't trust us, I get that. But if you tell us more, we can look for him. He's most likely with more captives and I need to save them, too. We can help each other out."

She expects nothing more but then his eyes meet hers. "As soon as we get there, they'll kill him. They'll know I talked and they'll kill him."

His voice is a new sound to her. She sighs. "We'll be smart. For the sake of your son, we'll be smart."

Lydia leaves the room with a slight feeling of success, finally.

She watches two of her men carrying the transmitter from the new helicopter down the hall, probably for Max in the communications room.

When she gets to her room and opens the door, she doesn't expect to see her mother sitting on her bed. She's showered and changed into new clothes, flipping through the Beastiary.

"You okay?" She asks her mother.

Her mother looks up with a warm smile and nods. Lydia sits next to her.

"Don't you find it wildly funny?"

Lydia frowns. "What's that?"

Natalie points to the picture that apparently describes the Banshee. "How inaccurate this book is."

Lydia laughs through her nose. "Very. Although, this part isn't far off the track."

Ms Martin reads the sentence that Lydia's small index finger rests upon. " _'There are many varying descriptions of the banshee. Sometimes she has long streaming hair and wears a grey cloak over a green dress, or she may be dressed in white with red hair'_." She laughs. "You do like green. Your hair isn't exactly red, however."

"Strawberry-blonde." Lydia smiles, her eyes distant.

Natalie closes the book carefully before linking her fingers. "Lydia, I wanted to talk to you about something."

Lydia's fingers drift along the spine of the book before she looks up.

"The base in New Haven. What will happen to everybody there now that Leanne's dead?"

Lydia blinks. "I, er - I haven't thought that far ahead if I'm honest, mom. I suppose I should speak to Simon."

Natalie nods, looking at her hands.

Lydia pulls her brows together. "Mom, is there something you want to ask me?"

She doesn't expect her mother to answer so quickly, but she does.

"I feel like I can do more, Lydia. I feel like I _should_ do more."

The nail drops. She sees where this is going and her heart misses a beat.

"I want to help them."

Lydia doesn't know what to say. Whether she should be happy that her mom wants to protect her, these people, or whether her mother wants to go so quickly after getting here.

"Okay..." Lydia blows out her cheeks, feeling her eyes begin to water. "Is there - is there anything you wanted to do...here? I could definitely - "

"Lydia, I'd really like to help the people in New Haven." Natalie whispers, moving her hand across the bed to hold Lydia's. "I'd like to go there and help them rebuild."

Lydia pulls in her lips.

"I've seen what...what an _amazing_ job you and the people have done here and I'm so _proud_ of you. Wouldn't it be nice to pass the ideas along?" Ms Martin tilts her head and smiles at her daughter.

Lydia nods, looking down at that intertwined hands. "It would. It really would. I'd like us all to be on the same level of intelligence, the same level of expertise. The same weapons, the same intel. I'd love for communications between bases to be accessible so we can all work together around the clock. I would love that, but..."

Natalie smiles, squeezing her daughter's hand.

"Would it be extremely selfish of me if I was to say...why did it have to be you?" Lydia lifts her watery eyes up to her mother.

Natalie strokes Lydia's hand with her thumb. "Definitely not. It would be extremely human, not selfish."

Lydia nods. She already knows the outcome of this, whether she lets it happen or whether she has a tantrum over it.

"You want to do this?"

Natalie nods. "Yes."

Lydia sniffs. Takes a big breath in and exhales. "Then what kind of human would that make me if I begged you to stay?"

Natalie lets a tear drop onto Lydia's bed sheet. "Extremely human."

****

\-----------------------

Lydia gets a million and one things done before her mother heads off.

The first thing she ticks off her list is communications.

Using the transmitter from the new helicopter and Max's radio, he and Lydia set up a much better system than morse code.

She packs everything that her mother needs to set up the coms on the other side.

The next thing on the list is a slap to the face, but if it means her mother will stay safe, then allowing Mackenzie to go with her is what Lydia needs to do.

So she has to say goodbye to her mother, goodbye to Mackenzie and ship them away in two military trucks with four of her men.

Mackenzie is the first to break that sad tension when they all hover in the barn above ground.

"Just because I'm leaving doesn't mean you all get to slack off in training. I want you working twice as hard as before." He raises an eyebrow.

Lydia smiles. "You have my word. I want you working the other base twice as hard, too."

Mackenzie grins. "You have my word."

"Please look her after, Mackenzie. I know she can defend herself, but - "

"She's your mother. You want her safe and I can promise her safety. I think she's more worried about you."

Lydia laughs lightly. "I think it's just in our genetics to worry. That's all we ever do."

"Well, rest assured, it's also in the Martin genetics for the women to be incredibly strong individuals. You should be proud of each other." Mackenzie sighs.

"You will not make me cry, Mackenzie. Stop trying." Lydia rolls her eyes with a smile.

He matches her expression before pulling her in for a one arm hug. "Don't be mean to the boys, you hear me? They already bend over backwards for you as it is."

Lydia smiles into his shoulder as he places a quick kiss on the crown of her head.

As he releases her, Natalie appears from the ladder with a full backpack and four men following. Mackenzie grabs her backpack and instructs the men to follow.

"You've all been amazing." Lydia stops them all in their tracks. "Thank you so much for your hard work. Be careful."

The men nod with a smile before heading to the trucks.

"Lydia, wipe that worried expression off of your face." Natalie sighs, pushing Lydia's hair back.

"I will when you will." Lydia pokes her tongue out slightly. "The first thing you do when you get there - "

"Set up communications." Natalie sighs. "I will. I promise."

Lydia nods, staring at the two trucks ready for transport. "I'll send over supplies and bodies as soon as I can - "

"Can you promise _me_ something, Lydia?" Natalie raises an eyebrow.

Lydia stares at her mother.

"Sleep more than four hours tonight, will you? Dark eyes do not go well with your beautiful pale complexion." Natalie smirks.

Lydia exhales and chuckles under her breath. "Fine."

"Eight hours, if applicable. Promise?"

"Promise." Lydia mumbles.

Natalie takes a deep breath in before pulling Lydia towards her. "This is not goodbye, Lydia. You know that, right?"

Lydia nods against her mother's shoulder. "I know."

"It's never goodbye." Natalie kisses Lydia's cheek and wipes under her eyes. "We've made that quite clear, haven't we?"

Lydia lets out a watery laugh. "Yes, we have."

As Natalie starts to take a few steps back, Lydia grabs her hand. "I'm proud of you, mom."

Natalie's eyes light up and her face melts. "Not as proud as I am of you. I love you, sweetheart."

"I love you, too." Lydia shoots her a wobbly smile before wrapping her arms around her waist.

She watches her mother climb into the passenger seat of one of the trucks. She sends Lydia a big smile and a wave before the cars begin to drive out of the base doors.

This would be an emotional and sweet send off if it wasn't for the guards on either side of the doors with their guns lifted. If anything, it just adds to the worry.

Lydia Martin is on her own, once again.

But _this_ time, she's nowhere as lost as she was before. This time, she's stronger, smarter and more prepared.

She's a fucking force to be reckoned with.


	7. And I just want to be there when the lightning strikes

** YEAR: 2016 **

Lydia stands up straight, arms folded with her back pressed against the furthest wall away in the cafeteria.

She stares at the crowd - _hundreds_ of them, which doesn't include the med bay patients and the staff currently working - and they all have smiles on their faces. They're all enjoying today, which to Lydia, is completely amazing. It's strength.

Every table, every bench is filled. Men, women, children. All different ages, all different backgrounds, all eyes have seen different wars but they are all happy today.

 _Lydia_ is happy today.

"Five minutes." Max appears next to her. "Do you have a wonderfully proof-read speech prepared?"

Lydia smirks at him. "Oh, _please_. It even has emotion and a slight inkling of _humour_."

Max holds a hand to his chest. "Lydia _Martin._ Are you feeling okay?"

She slams a hand against his mouth as she continues to look on at the crowd. "Please tell me you tested the lights. It would be extremely anti-climatic if this didn't go to plan."

"Oh, _please_. Do you know me at all?" Max pulls her hand away from his mouth.

Lydia exhales and grumbles, preparing herself. "God, I hate Christmas."

As she walks off, she hears Max snicker before following. "Think of the children, Lydia."

She walks around the room, smiling at the workers in the kitchen and nodding at them to come join. The room gets louder as she makes her way to the front of the crowd, stepping up onto the table so she can see everybody. Well, as much as she can. She is only five-foot-three.

Smiling around the room, she allows everyone to slowly divert their attention to her.

"Good afternoon, everyone. I hope you all enjoyed the Christmas dinner our amazing kitchen staff prepared for you." Lydia begins. "I know it wasn't quite as traditional as we remember, but I hope we managed to get the next best thing."

A burst of low laughter emits around the room which comforts Lydia, allowing her to move on more freely.

"It's been two years since all our lives changed. Two years since we had to alter our worlds in some of the worst ways. Two years since we all began our lives down here. So I wanted to congratulate you all for not tearing anybody's heads off yet. For not tearing _mine_ off." Lydia smiles.

The laughter is louder this time. It's a relaxing atmosphere which is exactly what Lydia wanted today.

"So, since it's been two years, and that to me is a long time, I wanted to glance over what we have achieved." She takes in a breath and scans the room. "We have successfully infiltrated eleven bases of the Black Nation. And, I know that may not seem like a lot in two years, but eleven bases withhold an average of eight-hundred in captivity. Which means, we have saved an average of six-hundred of the supernatural. That number includes some of you in this room, in the med bay, family, friends, people that you never thought you would see again. That's a _huge_ achievement."

Lydia's eyes wander the room, spotting the smiles and the quick hugs dotted amongst the crowd.

"Eleven infiltrated bases means better medical supplies, better weapons, better technology, better transport, and most of all, better _intellegence_. Our communications system is much more up to date, we have more helicopters, more trucks, more ammunition, more doctors, nurses, army, technicians, chefs, _teachers_...and the more we have, the more we can spread and share."

Lydia takes a step back on the table.

"We have five bases scattered across the United States. Us, New Haven, Naperville, Santa Maria and Orlando. Each individual base is now fully equipt with medical supplies, technology, staff, weapons, transport and people. Everyone is being equally cared for, equally trained, equally fed. We're now in a position where children are being taught the basic lessons they would in school. I think that's _incredible_. And I think we can all agree on this."

Lydia doesn't expect the massive round of applause to echo through the room. She joins in. She wasn't wrong in what she said, it's a massive achievement.

"Food is now supplied much easier, thanks to our bio department that have created the botanical gardens on the east side of the base. We can now grow and harvest fruit and vegetables, and thanks to our men upstairs, we can farm our animals correctly. We even have the housing corner on the third floor where you lovely and amazing people have taken in the animals from the streets to care for. We have made living underground a beneficial and healthy lifestyle, and that is down to every single one of you staring back at me. So, a round applause for yourselves is in order."

This applause is louder than before. Lydia sees everyone congratulating each other...pats on the backs, hugs, high-fives. It's amazing.

"So, when we turn these lights on and settle down for the evening with our home-made ciders that Cider Dave has kindly spent the last few months creating for us..." She points to David from the bio lab and allows an applause for him. "...and listen to the carols and Christmas tunes that the technicians have arranged for us to listen to..." Another round of applause the tech guys. Max takes a bow. Lydia rolls her eyes. "...we can sit down tonight and celebrate everything we have achieved in the past two years."

A few cheers erupt in the room.

"We didn't celebrate Christmas last year." Lydia pulls in her lips. "I think I can speak for everyone when I say there didn't really feel like there was anything to celebrate. Isn't it amazing how one year can make all the difference? Today, we can celebrate our health. Our mothers, our fathers, our sisters, our brothers. Grandfathers, grandmothers, granddaughters, grandsons. Cousins, nieces, nephews, old friends, _new_ friends. Teachers, nurses, doctors, cooks, cleaners, technicians, our scientists, our men on the front line, and most importantly, our _children_. You are learning every day, becoming stronger and better and you are everything. You are going to be our future and I am so proud of you all."

Another eruption of cheers bounces through the cafeteria.

"So, today, I want to sit back and celebrate us. I want to thank each and every single one of you for making all of this possible. We will light up this tree behind me and celebrate life. Merry Christmas, everyone."

Lydia steps back and is about to turn the switch on as originally planned, but she looks to the front of the crowd where most of the children have gathered and she picks out a young girl.

She kneels down on the table and smiles with a hand stretched. The girl shyly takes Lydia's hand and steps up, allowing Lydia to sit her next to the switch.

Lydia turns to the crowd. "Let the countdown begin!"

It goes down from ten. Ten seconds Lydia spends, staring at the cheering crowd, the smiles, the laughter, the excitement. She's blown away by it all.

She said she hated Christmas. Maybe this one will be a bit different.

It gets down to the last second, and Lydia turns to the young girl and nods for her to press the switch. The cafeteria lights go out and the large decorated tree lights up in multicolour.

Everyone cheers.

Lydia stares at the tree with a smile and her arms folded. She studies the tree decorations and the baubles that the children made in art class. She looks at the lights that Max created, some are flickering weakly and a few have died but it lights up the whole room in blues, greens, reds, yellows. It's beautiful.

And when Merry Christmas by Slade begins to play through the tannoys around the room, Lydia laughs. Out loud, head back, honest laughter.

It's all a bit far fetched, but it's real.

As she steps off the table, Cider Dave hands her an opened bottle of cider and wishes her a Merry Christmas.

"Merry Christmas, Dave." She knocks bottles with his and takes a swig.

Jesus _Christ_. She hides her grimmace.

"It's lovely! Much better than the last batch, well done."

As soon as Dave saunters off happily, Lydia's face morphs into a look of horror and she forces the liquid down her throat. Max approaches her with a loud laugh.

"It's fucking disgusting, isn't it."

Lydia coughs a little. "If it gets me drunk then I'm not complaining."

"Merry Christmas, Lydia." Max grins, wrapping his arm around her shoulder before planting a kiss on her forehead.

"Merry Christmas, Max." Lydia wraps an arm around his waist and squeezes. "This all looks incredible. Well done."

"Nice speech. I nearly cried." Max knocks his bottle against Lydia's.

"You liar. You _definitely_ cried."

"Hey, hey, it's _Christmas_. Let's stay festive, shall we?" Max takes a swig of his drink as they wander around the crowd.

As Lydia does the same, Theo passes them with a look of discomfort and a bottle of Dave's cider in his grasp.

"This shit's disgusting."

When he disappears into the crowd, Lydia and Max pause with laughter.

It takes a long time to make it around the room, but Lydia does eventually wish everyone a happy Christmas. She wanders out of the cafeteria and into the med bay where the music continues to play. The nurses are dancing along and the patients that are awake are smiling. Lydia approaches everyone and has quick chats before she heads over to Jim.

He's sitting in the chair next to a bed where his son lies. He's awake and joking with his dad and Lydia feels a bit better about herself.

It may be selfish to feel this way, but after keeping Jim in captivity and making him go through a bit too much, it's only human of her to feel as if she's repaid him in the best way by finding his son.

"Merry Christmas, Jim. Merry Christmas, Owen." Lydia smiles, resting against the side of the bed. "How are you feeling?"

"Better today, thank you." Owen smiles.

"Jim, I got you a cider. I'll warn you now, don't get your hopes up." Lydia laughs, handing him the bottle.

"As long as it's better than the last one, I'm happy." Jim chuckles, taking a sip.

"Sorry, Owen." Lydia turns to the teenager. "As much as the world's gone to shit, you're still not old enough. I'm sticking to the law on this one."

Owen's face drops. "Seriously?"

"I'm kidding." Lydia smiles. "But you're still not having one. Not while you're my patient."

"Son, you're honestly not missing out on a great deal." Jim coughs with a frown.

"The _soul_ reason your father and I are drinking this stuff is for the effect, not the taste. So, you don't really need to be drinking it. You're a werewolf." Lydia smirks.

"Fine. I'll just stick with my super cool and fun h2o." Owen lifts his cup of water and flashes a fake smile. "Merry Christmas."

Lydia laughs as they cheer.

She leaves the father and son and heads across the bay to the communications room.

Sitting in front of the screen, she rests her bottle on the side and draws her finger along the screen, selecting 'New Haven'. Leaning back in the chair, she picks up her cider and waits for it to connect.

Her mother's face fills the screen in a matter of seconds.

" _Merry Christmas, honey!"_ "

Lydia grins. "Merry Christmas, mom."

" _What the hell are you drinking?_ " 

"Don't ask. _I_ don't even know at this point. Wait - what have you got there?"

" _Bottle of red._ "

Lydia exhales and lets her mouth drop. "No way. This is so unfair."

" _We have white and rosé, too. It's a very merry base today._ " Natalie laughs.

"I'm not seeing any Christmas decorations." Lydia raises an eyebrow.

" _Oh, wait a second..._ " Natalie leans out of the screen's view for a few moments until she returns with a Christmas hat on her head.

Lydia laughs. "Wow! I can tell you guys have been doing to serious gas station raids."

" _You bet. Mackenzie's already on the bottle of scotch. Mackenzie! Lydia's here._ "

Lydia realizes she's been subconsciously grinning throughout the duration of the video call. It feels way too odd.

" _Merry Christmas, Lydia!_ " Mackenzie appears with a red face.

Lydia laughs against the neck of her cider. "Merry Christmas, Mackenzie. You seem to be enjoying yourself."

" _Better than you're enjoying Cider Dave's horrific concoction. Going down a treat?_ "

Lydia points the bottle to the screen. "You bet. Tastes just like a pornstar martini."

" _Yeah, and if I close my eyes and imagine hard enough, your ma's sitting here in a frilly little red lingerie piece._ "

Lydia chokes on her drink and sits up with a gasp. "Mackenzie! Get out of here, you pervert."

Natalie swats his arm and shoos him off. " _For goodness sake. No good can come of scotch._ "

Lydia holds back a laugh before squinting her eyes. "Mom, you and Mackenzie aren't - "

" _God, no! Don't even insinuate it._ "

"I mean, I won't hold it against you. Christmas is a time of togetherness and all that jazz."

Natalie rolls her eyes and Lydia knows she's receiving a mental scold off of her mother. 

" _I could say the same for you, Lydia. Don't spend today alone._ "

"I'm not." Lydia mumbles. Her mother doesn't look assured. "I'm not! I'm going to go and spend my Christmas with Max and Theo, unfortunately. Wish me luck."

" _Good. Don't do the usual and spend it in your room, drifting into the past. It's the past for a reason, remember that._ "

Yep, Lydia's mother has had a share fair of wine, quite clearly.

"I won't, mom. I promise. Merry Christmas. I love you."

" _I love you, too, sweetheart. Merry Christmas._ "

She leaves the coms room and heads back into the cafeteria. As she begins to locate Max in the busy room, she almost doesn't notice a little boy approach her with an adult.

"Merry Christmas, ma'am." The boy looks up at her with a present made with card and crayons.

Her heart actually warms up, and it's not the cider.

"This is for me?" Lydia blinks in shock.

The little boy nods.

"Thank you so much." Lydia smiles, still a little surprised.

The adult smiles down at the child before pulling them away.

She stares down at the small box for a little while, wondering how on earth children can stay so vulnerable in such a cruel world. Then she hears Max call her name.

She joins him and Theo and a few more at the tables.

When they all begin to chat amongst themselves again, Lydia opens the box and looks inside.

It's a drawn stick figure on a piece of paper with a helmet on. Orange scribbles pop out of the helmet to represent Lydia's hair and a speech bubble is drawn from her mouth with the word 'SCREAM' in. Next to her stick figure is a few more, clearly represented as the bad guys with angry faces and guns, but they are being flung into a group of trees next to them by Lydia's scream.

At the top of the page, two words that are written in crayon kind of make Lydia hold her breath for a second. Just two words. 

_My hero_.

Lydia folds the piece of paper and sticks it in her pocket before looking around the room with a proud smile on her face. She's a little boy's hero.

She joins in the conversation, now feeling satisfied and, honestly, really happy with herself.

Lydia does hate Christmas, but this one has definitely made it to the top five.

**\- - - - -**

"Any update?"

After Lydia pops her head through the door of the coms room, Max turns in his chair with sunken eyes and a hairstyle that can only be described as bed-hair.

"Can you not enter so loudly?"

"Wow." Lydia laughs. "Max, you look like shit."

"And how do you not?"

"Because I pre-plan everything. Including hangovers. Here." She throws him a bottle of water.

"Thank you. And to answer your question, no updates. But that's not because I'm hungover."

Lydia enters the room properly and takes a seat next to Max. She looks up at the screen. "Is the connection severed?"

"No, the connection is fine. But the radio we pulled from the helicopter isn't finding anything. Nothing at all."

"This radio _has_ to be connected to one of their bases. All the other radios have."

"This radio should be connected to _all_ of their bases. It's higher tech than the others. It has more range, but it's showing Jack Crap." Max leans back with an exhale.

"Would it make you feel better if I told you to leave it for today and go to bed?" Lydia's mouth turns up slightly.

"I mean, the thought of my bed kind of makes me want to cry with happiness right now, so...yes, please."

Lydia rolls her eyes and gestures to the door which Max disappears through in the blink of an eye. She takes one final look at the screen before pulling herself up and entering the med bay.

She starts her rounds of today, checking each patient's stat levels. Most of them are from the last base they raided where they found Jim's son. And, after looking at most of their stats, Lydia can assume that they won't be in here much longer.

She gets to Owen's bed after several checked patients and he's resting peacefully with his father sitting at his side.

"Morning, Jim." Lydia smiles with a quiet voice. "Has he woken up at all?"

Jim looks up with a smile. "Around six. He said he felt pretty tired, but no changes apart from that."

Lydia nods, picking up Owen's chart from the end of his bed. As she scrolls through, she looks to Jim every now and then. "That's pretty normal. He's been on a high since arriving here, so it's only fair that his body needs to rest after everything he's been through."

"How long again until the serum completely wears off?" Jim asks.

"Well, it depends on the individual but from our past patients, roughly a week or..." Lydia takes a double look at Owen's stats. "Or two..."

She re-reads his heart rate then checks the machine next to Owen's bed.

How off.

"Jim, what time did the nurses come round this morning?"

"Around six, when Owen woke up. Why's that?"

She moves around the bed to ensure the machine is giving the correct results. "No reason. Just so I can keep the records updated."

A complete lie, but she's not raising worry just yet. It could be a miss-read.

"Be back in a second." She places the medical chart back in its place and heads to the nurses' station at the end of the bay. "Nurse Pattison?"

"Morning, Lydia."

"Good morning. The heart rate on Owen's chart, was that updated this morning?"

"Yes, around six." Nurse Pattison nods. "Is there anything wrong?"

"According to the cardiac monitor, it's shot up to one-hundred-and-nineteen."

The nurse frowns. "From ninety-eight?"

Lydia nods. "Can we get his machine switched over with another, please? Just to be sure."

"Of course." Nurse Pattison gestures for another nurse to follow.

Lydia tails after them, looking through Owen's chart again.

Jim stands as he watches the nurses hook up a different machine. "What's wrong?"

Lydia hooks the chart under her arm. "The machine may be giving false readings. We're changing it to be sure. Don't worry."

Jim looks unsettled, which is fair, but he takes his seat again.

Lydia waits, watches, and when the new machine is up and running and it shows that Owen's heart rate is, in fact, one-hundred-and- _twenty-two_ , Lydia's stomach sinks slightly.

It shouldn't be going this high.

"That's high." Jim looks at the screen with one slow blink.

Lydia nods. "It is."

"What does that mean?"

"It means his body thinks that Owen is currently undergoing a brisk jog." Lydia wants to frown because none of this makes sense, but she doesn't. She keeps a pokerface. "Jim, we're going to take some blood, if that's okay, and while I check it out the nurses will monitor Owen frequently."

"Of course, yeah." Jim nods.

Lydia takes Owen's chart with her and heads straight to the labs.

While waiting for the blood samples to be delivered, she goes through every single bit of Owen's medical chart, from when he first arrived a week ago to now to see any slight differences.

His heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature and respiratory rate was on a high when he first arrived (due to the serum the Black Nation injected) but then his vitals slowly decreased during treatment in the med bay, as normal.

She compares his vitals to yesterday and the day before. Owen's heart rate is the only drastic change; not too high, but a large jump from this morning.

His blood pressure has gone up by one since yesterday. Not abnormal.

Lydia calls through to the med bay and asks nurse Pattison to check Owen's vitals once more and as she turns the coms off, Owen's blood samples are being delivered to her.

She puts one sample in FBC to check the number of red and white cells. No irregular activity from the white blood cells as the serum hasn't completely worn off yet. Once Owen's body is completely stripped of the serum, his white blood cell count should be back up to the irregular were-wolf amount.

They should be growing by now, but Owen's body may just be taking a little bit longer than others.

But he is young, so it _should_ be taking less.

Lydia moves on.

She puts two samples in Centrifuge and waits impatiently as the machine spins the blood. Five minutes later, the blood cells are separated and Lydia's moving them into another machine.

The clinical chemistry analyzer shows an indication that a substance is impacting Owen's kidneys, only slightly. So slightly that they cannot see the effects.

And when she gets the results from the immunoanalyser, her Christmas spirit dwindles very quickly.

She asks the lab leader to check her work and while he does, she heads to the med bay and checks the next patients' charts.

Some are normal, some are the same as Owen's. This doesn't make sense.

Lydia sticks on her leadership cap and orders the nurses to take blood from every single patient they rescued from Santa Maria last week (ignoring the concerned look of loved ones, including Jim) and heads _back_ to the lab.

"Nathan?"

The lab leader turns to face her, and his expression shows that Lydia's work is correct.

Something is attacking Owen's kidneys. Very, _very_ slowly.

She looks around the lab, swallowing the horrible feeling in her throat. "Get ready for a busy day, everyone. You have sixty-three blood samples heading to you in the next hour. Run every test, every scan and _triple check_. No slacking. I've got a bad feeling and we need to stay in front of it."

Lydia heads to Max's room next, and she isn't quiet about knocking.

" _Christ_." Max mumbles from his room.

"Get up. I need your help."

"Are you torturing me? You _just_ sent me back to bed -"

"Max, please get up." Lydia exhales.

A few moments later, the door opens and a rough-looking Max is frowning at her with concern.

Lydia pulls in her lips. "I think we have a huge problem."

****

\- - - - -

Max takes his eye away from the lens of the microscope. He stares at the machine. Blinks. Looks at Lydia. "This - Lydia, is _our_ anti-serum causing this?" 

Lydia swallows. "I'd like to say no. It makes no sense - none of our previous patients have had this effect. If there was something in the anti-serum that was attacking organs, I think we would have known about it by now." 

"We're gonna have to test everyone." Max looks at her with certain. "If we need to be sure, we'll have to match the previous data up with the new data." 

"The new data is _just_ the Santa Monica patients. This makes no sense. It can't be our serum." Lydia shakes her head, rubbing her eyes. 

She sees the exact moment where the bulb lights up in Max's brain. "It's got to be something the Black Nation gave them." 

"How? When we've eliminated their serum before without failure?" 

"They've changed the serum." Max breathes. "They've altered it, changed it, made it better - or worse, in our case." 

Lydia frowns then her face softens as she thinks. Then she turns to Nathan. 

"Nathan, can you get three serums we've collected from each base?" 

"On it." 

Lydia turns to Max. "If you're right then we need to find a different pattern. Compare the latest serum we stole to the others." 

"Lydia, if I am right..." Max halters. 

"If you are right, Max, then we're running out of time to make a _new_ anti-serum." 

She's back in the med bay before she knows it, checking every patient's latest stats. 

Owen's blood pressure is higher and his temperature has jumped up. Same as Mrs Radding, Aaron from bed thirteen, John, Nina, little Kaitlyn, Melissa Goodwin... 

The more it's laid out in front of Lydia, the more she's thinking that Max is absolutely correct. 

And if Max is correct, then they need to make a new anti-serum. And if the patient's vitals continue to spike as quickly as they have in one _morning_ , then they need to make a new anti-serum _extremely_ fast.

And if that works, then they have to transport the new anti-serum to their sister bases before they infiltrate any more of the Black Nation's bases.

They need to stay on top of it but it's moving fast. Too fast in one day.

Lydia feels like she's spent the last three hours tripping up on her own feet.

But she continues - _back_ to the med bay - to find Nathan and Max testing the Black Nation serums.

They both wear an even more worrying expression than before.

Max sighs, takes off his goggles and looks at Lydia. "They've upgraded."

"Their serum?"

Nathan nods. "It's not just stripping the supernatural of their powers."

Lydia closes her eyes. "It's killing them."

"It's made to _kill_." Max drops his head.

****

\- - - - -

The bright lights of the lab are hurting Lydia's brain. She's been in here too long.

It's too noisy, as well, with everyone on high panic, yelling to her, updating her, asking her questions.

She hasn't eaten since breakfast, she cannot concentrate but the med bay patients are now showing sign of infections so she really cannot stop.

As much as Max keeps telling her to eat and sleep, she continues to reply with a swift ' _piss off, Max_ '.

The new serum carries a virus. A virus that begins slowly, allowing the other particles of the serum to wipe the supernatural cells, which means that the body will not be able to fight off the virus quickly like a werewolf, for example.

The serum is leaving them defenceless and then the virus is attacking their organs.

The only thing that's been keeping it at bay is the anti-serum, which relieves Lydia a little. That means they haven't been killing their own and it gives them a _little_ more time.

The virus is attacking, just at a slower pace than expected.

"We need to know what this virus is made up of." Nathan updates Lydia later in the afternoon. "There's only so much of it we can strip down, but we cannot get to the core without knowing the substances."

"How the hell are we going to find that out?" Lydia rests her head in her palms. Her back aches.

"By being in _their_ labs. But that's near enough impossible without them trying to kill us and...and we really do not have the time to waste by revisiting their bases."

"So we need the Black Nation's labs, or we need the Black Nation." Lydia replies with a deadpan tone.

Nathan nods.

She's about to curse into the palms of her hands at the fact they've hit a massive brick wall, but then something clicks in her mind.

She stands up straight.

Leaving Nathan with no indication to what she's thinking, Lydia heads back to the med bay for the thousandth time today.

She has no time to spill as she heads to Owen's bed and looks at Jim without a ' _hello_ ' or an update.

She just looks at him with a desperate expression.

"Jim, I need your help."

He glances up with a weathered face and struggles to understand.

Not to raise concern, she gestures him to follow her and she leads him to the hallway.

"The Black Nation has improved their serum." Lydia begins. "It's set to kill."

Jim's face crumbles completely. "What?"

"We've hit a wall and we need help. You used to work in the Black Nation's lab department, right? That's where I found you when we infiltrated your base?"

"Y - yes, but they hadn't made anything new, as far as I was aware." Jim shook his head, looking a little distant.

"Jim, you need to think. _Really_ think. You remember all the substances that created the serum, right?"

He nods. "Nevertheless, you know this already."

"Something like this takes time to plan. There _must_ have been a change. Even new materials brought into the labs...new substances, new chemicals... _anything_."

Jim's wracking his brains, Lydia can see this. He's been put on the spot and that never helps.

"Come with me." She orders and they head to the labs.

When she brings him in, Max frowns at her. _Everyone_ frowns at her. As much as things are settled, Jim is still originally an enemy.

However, Lydia cannot give the slightest shit right now. Not when people are going to die.

"Jim, I want you to note down _anything_ and _everything_ you can think of when working in their labs. No matter how pointless, I want it written down."

He looks sceptical, as if it's not worth it but he does what he's told.

As soon as Lydia watches him pick up a pen, her pager goes off.

Never a good sign.

She and Max exchange looks and they run to the med bay.

They get in the bay, put gloves on and run to where the havoc is coming from.

Bed twenty-six. Little Kaitlyn.

Lydia clenches her jaw.

"She's having a cardiac arrest." Nurse Pattison yells at them both and they are at Kaitlyn's bedside in a second.

" _How?_ " Lydia snaps.

The nurses ignore her, because they honestly don't know _how_ a seven-year-old girl can have a cardiac arrest.

They place the defibrillator pads on the little girl's chest and Lydia steps forward to begin resuscitation.

She looks at the screen where it shows that Kaitlyn is flat-lining.

"Clear."

The first shock runs through Katilyn's body. When her chest is forced up and lands back down on the bed, nothing changes.

The line is still flat.

"Again. Charge me up." Lydia huffs a sweaty strand of her from her face.

She looks up at Max as the pads charge. He's checking her current stats with confusion. How the hell did this happen?

"Clear."

Another jolt. Nothing.

"Shit. Shit, shit shit." Lydia mumbles. "Charge."

Nurse Pattison continues CPR.

The pads charge up. Kaitlyn's body is shocked again.

Nothing.

Lydia's going to throw up.

" _Again_ -"

"Ma'am, she's not responding -"

" _Charge!_ " Lydia yells, a little too loudly. The nurses spend a second staring at her in shock before doing as they're told.

Max has stopped checking Kaitlyn's stats. He's obviously given up.

"Clear." Lydia gruffs, pressing down on the pads a little harder, as if that will make any difference whatsoever.

It's a flat line. No bumps, no jolts, no sudden reading of a heartbeat.

"Again."

"Lydia."

"Again."

Nurse Pattison has stopped with the compressions.

Then Max is next to Lydia, leaning around her and taking her hands off of the pads.

The machine drones out the long, aching noise that is a forever reminder that seven-year-old Kaitlyn went into cardiac arrest and died.

Max looks deep into Lydia's eyes and shakes his head.

One of the nurses states the time of death. Lydia isn't doing it.

Instead, she stares at Kaitlyn's still body, her chest not moving up and down and when her eyes cannot bear any more, Lydia turns around.

When she turns, with her hands behind her head, every patient is staring over.

Wide-eyed, fear etching through their veins much like the virus in their system. And they're all thinking the same. It's a selfish and narrowed thought but it's a valid one; _Is that going to happen to me?_

Lydia's mouth and throat are dry, her eyes sting and she cannot think of anything to say.

Until she remembers that seven-year-old Kaitlyn has a mother and her mother is wandering around the base somewhere, completely unknown to what just happened.

So Lydia coats her throat and clears it, then turns to the med door.

"Can someone please find Kaitlyn's mother and inform her of what's happened."

Then she leaves, Max on her tail and she doesn't say anything else.

She doesn't want to tell Kaitlyn's mother, so she doesn't.

She should, but she won't. There's no more time.

If any more time disappears, then Lydia will have the job of telling a lot more family and friends that their loved ones have died.

**\- - - - -**

Lydia eyes land on Nathan when she enters the lab.

He's reading through Jim's list and by the look on his face, he knows nothing new.

It's confirmed when he looks up at her and shakes his head.

Lydia stands in front of Jim. "You need to try harder."

"Lydia, I can't think of anything -"

"A little girl has just _died._ " Her voice raises. "Your son could be next."

By the look on Jim's face, she knows she's taken it too far but she doesn't care.

"Lydia -" Max begins from behind her.

"Jim, we are on our last leg." She slams her hand on the table. "They will all die one by one if we don't come up with something. You need to think _harder_."

The man has tears in his eyes.

Lydia turns to Max, to Nathan, to all of the lab workers standing still just _staring_ at her.

"There must be _something!_ " She glares at Jim once more. "We need to think of _something_."

No other words are ushered. They all get to work.

Lydia goes through Jim's day to day routine back at the Idaho base. What time he started, what he was told, what he did, what he saw. Everything.

They're all still there when the clock strikes one in the morning.

Jim has listed off as much as he can and Lydia has no more ideas. She's starting to go a little insane.

Her forehead is resting against the cold table when she turns her head to look at Jim. "Were you ever allowed into their research facility?"

As the minutes tick away, Jim is taking longer to think. His eyes are very red. "Once or twice."

"Can you think of anything you saw?"

"Only once, when they were researching wolfsbane." He leans back in his chair.

They already know they use wolfsbane. And it's not showing up in the serum. Besides, if the patients were laced with wolfsbane, Lydia would have known about it. Spitting out black liquid isn't something the human eye could miss.

"So they were researching poisons of some sort." Max points out.

"I guess. Are there any other plants that kill werewolves?" Jim asks.

"Not that I know of. Our anti-serum already defends the effects of wolfsbane so it would most likely defend the effects of any other plants that come close." Lydia replies.

"What if it's not a plant that's specifically being used to attack the supernatural?" Nathan adds.

Max nods. "This virus only triggers when the serum clears the body of supernatural cells. So it can only attack a human body."

"It relates to no virus we know of." Lydia shoots back. "It has no pattern of any viruses known to mankind."

"Our patients are failing to make protein." A lab worker calls from the far end of the room. They all turn to her as she takes her eye away from the microscope lens in front of her.

Lydia stands up. "None at all?"

The girl shakes her head.

"What kind of virus stops protein being made?" Max asks the room.

"Wait, go back to the plant." Jim looks at Nathan. "What plants attack the human body?"

"Many." Nathan blinks.

"Jim, what do you remember?" Lydia stares at him.

"It - It wasn't just wolfsbane, I think. I remember hearing something about...god, it's going to sound ridiculous."

"We can use ridiculous. What is it?" Lydia rushes.

"They were researching castor oil plants, or the castor bean - I think, anyway -"

"Castor bean?" Nathan repeats.

"I think so, yes."

Lydia's mind whirls back to her days of researching random facts and information and _something_ is ringing a bell. "It's from the Mediterranean."

They all look at her like she's lost her mind. "What?"

"The plant, it's from the Mediterranean. It's _poisenious_."

Everyone's eyes light up. It could be fear and happiness at this point, or both. They're getting somewhere.

"The seeds produce a protein called Ricin. It attacks the central nervous system, adrenal glands, the _kidneys_ -"

"Holy shit." Max breathes. "It's not a virus, it's a poison."

Lydia nods. "They're being poisoned."

"Is there an antidote?" Jim asks.

"No, there isn't. It needs to be flushed out of the body as quickly as possible." Lydia replies quickly, her mind slotting everything together.

"What with?"

"Intravenous fluids, and...believe it or not, activated charcoal." Lydia raises her eyebrows.

For about ten seconds, everyone just stares at each other, not really believing that they may have just found a resolution. Then, after the ten seconds, it's complete havoc.

Everyone's rushing around, re-visiting the serum to find the Ricin protein, figuring out how to create activated charcoal, raiding the med bay storage room for fluids...it's all pretty crazy and up in the air but it's _something_.

As Lydia dives in, her pager goes off.

They've been unfortunately waiting for it to beep all night and it didn't. Lydia thought they were in the clear for a while, but apparently not.

"Max?" Lydia looks up at him. He reads her mind and heads out.

"Okay, they can deal with that. They'll be fine. He'll be fine. Jim, go with him." Lydia rambles.

He stands up, unsure. Lydia turns to him. "Go. Be with your son. And thank you."

Jim nods, (no longer looking tired) and disappears from the lab.

"Okay," Lydia turns to the lab team. "Let's make some charcoal."

**\- - - - -**

It's six in the morning and they're on their fourth anti-serum. Three tested, three failed.

They lose another patient, Aaron. Max has been in the med bay for the past three hours flushing out the patients with fluids.

So they're on their fourth serum and Lydia's vision is extremely blurry, even with glasses.

They all need sleep, they all shouldn't be working at this point. But, without sound communication, they all carry on.

When the clock strikes seven, and Lydia can hear everyone's stomach's growling, she actually stops what she's doing and practically runs to the cafeteria to grab everyone something small.

It's odd being in a different room after so long, but things aren't much calmer. Word spreads very quickly.

As Lydia grabs a handful of muffins and some water, Theo has spotted her.

"Lydia? What's going on?"

She walks straight past him, her eye on the door. "Theo, I'm sorry. I don't have time."

"Have two people really died? What happened?"

"Theo, I will explain it all to everyone once we've figured it out ourselves, alright? Please, just wait."

And that was the end of that conversation. She's back in the lab and everyone wolfs down a muffin and some water and continues.

At eight-thirty, Lydia's pager beeps. Max is still in the bed bay. They need help.

"Fucking _hell_ -"

"Go." Nathan calls out to her.

Another visit to the med bay and it's havoc, once again. Nurses are surrounding multiple beds and Max is flying from one end to the other.

Lydia dives right in. Two cardiac arrests and one seizure. She honestly doesn't know where to go first but without her even processing it she is at bed thirty-four where Nina is convulsing.

"Fluids. Lots of fluids." Lydia calls out to anyone and mentally thanks the nurse that hears her.

Nurse Pattison and Lydia hold down Nina as her eyes roll to the back of her head. They keep her down for what feels like forever until the nurse comes with fluids and she hooks them up.

"Do we wait with her and ride it out?" Nurse Pattison asks. "Or shall we sedate her?"

"No, don't sedate her." Lydia replies, using all her strength to keep the girl down. "Only fluids. We'll have to ride it out."

After six minutes, Nina calms down and falls unconscious.

They lose Mrs Radding and John.

Lydia's head is spinning.

No words spoken, she heads back to the lab and as soon as she steps in, her pager goes off again.

She's losing her fucking mind. "We need an anti-serum now!"

"Wait, wait! Wait there." Nathan yells back.

Lydia checks her pager as Nathan waits for the machine to stop spinning. He opens the lid, pulls out the substance and runs to Lydia.

"Fourth time's a charm. Go."

Back at the med bay. Three beds surrounded.

One of the beds is Owen's.

Lydia can hear Jim screaming but Lydia needs to ignore it. She finds a syringe, fills it with the fourth anti-serum and heads straight to Owen's side.

Cardiac arrest. The machine is practically screaming at her that time is running out.

"Lydia, will it work?" Jim yells over the nurses.

"I don't know." Lydia inhales, looks up at a nurse who looks just as nervous as she does.

And then she injects it.

Lydia's probably gripping Owen's arm a little too hard but he's flatlining and nothing's changing and she's holding her breath and her heart is about to break through her chest.

_Please. Please, please please -_

One beep.

Two beeps.

Owen's chest rises.

Owen's chest falls.

Repeat.

Rises, falls. Repeat.

"Oh my god."

It _worked_.

The nurse opposite cries with relief.

"It worked. It worked?" Jim stares at the nurses.

"I think it worked." Lydia squeaks.

Relief lasts for roughly five seconds before she hears another flatline on the opposite side of the room.

Timed perfectly, two workers from the lab rush in with a tray of anti-serum. The nurses surround them like vultures.

Lydia grabs two, gets to the other end of the med bay, hands one to Max and they both go to work on two patients.

She's at Melissa Goodwin's bedside and nurses are resuscitating her. No response.

"Hold." Lydia yells and the nurse takes the pads from Melissa's chest.

Lydia injects and waits.

"Come on, Melissa."

The seconds tick and Lydia's mind is whirled into scenes of _her_ Melissa, of _Scott's_ Melissa, lying on the ground. Bloody, cold, dead. No way to be saved.

More seconds tick and Lydia's brought back into the real world where _this_ Melissa lies still.

" _Come on,_ Melissa."

Her heart rate reappears on the screen.

She's breathing.

Lydia exhales shakily. Her head throbs, her heart hurts but relief is soothing it.

She looks over to Max and he looks exactly the same. His patient is breathing.

"It works." Lydia breathes, closing her eyes. "It works."

****

\- - - - -

Lydia and Max sit side by side, on the floor of the coms room, heads leaning against the wall.

Sunken eyes, hungry stomachs and the aching need for rest.

"We did it, Lydia."

Lydia closes her eyes and nods. Her eyelids just want to stay down.

"That was fucking intense." Max pushes his cheeks out.

Images of Mason's face flood Lydia's mind.

"It's not over yet."

"Of course it's over. We've got an anti-serum."

"And what about the people still out there, imprisoned in the Black Nation's bases? The ones without our anti-serum slowing down the poison? What about them, Max?" Lydia turns to him.

Max blinks.

"They haven't got time. And we cannot get to them in time. Any base we infiltrate as of now, we will rescue probably a _quarter_ of the amount we usually rescue."

Nothing's spoken after that. They both sit and live with the fact that these people today will most likely be the only people they'll be saving.

They both fall asleep on the floor.


End file.
